


Ecclesiastes 1:9

by doctor_awkward



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Caring Hannibal Lecter, Gen, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, Hannibal Lecter is a Mess, Hannibal Rising References, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Zombie Apocalypse, Sassy Will Graham, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Someone Help Will Graham, Will Graham Knows, Will Graham in Denial, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, hannibal lecter is a player
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:01:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 62,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28164420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor_awkward/pseuds/doctor_awkward
Summary: Waking up months after the fall, Will finds himself vulnerable and in the middle of a global apocalypse that makes a little honest murder and cannibalism seem ...trivial at best.Along with a naïve group of survivors who don't recognize the serial killer in their midst, Will must adjust to his redefined relationship to Hannibal in a new, lawless world where monsters sit at the top of the food chain. It doesn't help that there is something very wrong with Hannibal. Well... more wrong than usual.
Relationships: Hannibal Lecter/Original Female Character(s), Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 77
Kudos: 146





	1. Out of the maw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the fall, Will wakes up alone.

i. 

The roar of wind and the roar of water. Water, solid like a brick wall, shattering around me and closing overheard. 

There is steaming hot blood, the roaring rend of the fabric of the world, then sudden icy silence. 

and then roaring, and then silence, and then roaring 

A great and terrible open maw, glistening teeth like a thousand icicles, but made only of water. It is sucking me, pulling me down, under, in, a giant void so much greater than any of the suddenly very trivial perils I’ve known. 

I have only a moment to have a thought, and the thought is: all these cannibals and dragons and now finally I’m getting properly eaten by something. 

It’s just a moment, a thought in the dark, but there’s no giant mouth anymore — just silence, silence, darkness and silence. 

Flashes of light, and screaming, and more silence. 

1.

I’m waking up. Something keeps pulling me back, but I fight it. Too much darkness, I just want to see something. 

Flowers in a vase. Blue. No, white. Little black pistils. 

I go back to the dark. 

The flowers again. It occurs to me that I’m in a bed in a room, that it’s quiet, but not silent. There’s a soft humming noise, something mechanical, like an A/C unit. I can hear birds chirping, muted, as though through a window. 

My face feels funny, but it’s not my immediate concern. I seem to have all my arms and legs. I curl my toes reflexively, watching the twin bumps in the soft white blanket at the end of the bed. I’m glad to see them, glad to see they work, but I’m not quite sure why. My legs feel different, too — lighter, somehow. Too light. 

Hands. Still have two, though my skin hangs a little loosely from my wrist. The right hand has an IV port taped to the back. I use my left to feel my face, to poke at the weird feeling on my right cheek. 

I find I’ve got a short beard, but I can’t feel where my fingers are touching - like I’ve had Novocain in the wrong spot. There’s a plastic tube crossing my cheek and snaking around my ear that I didn’t feel, either. 

I struggle to follow the line of tube with my hand, then give up and try the IV instead. I feel winded just from fumbling with my hands and turning my neck and shoulders. The plastic tubing leads up to an empty-looking bag hanging from a pole to the side of the bed.

I have to rest a while. 

I must be in a hospital, I think through the stuffing that is my brain, but apart from the hospital bed and the tubes and some machinery in the corner, it doesn’t quite track. Well — not much is tracking. The room doesn’t feel commercial. 

There’s an extremely well-framed print on the wall opposite the windows, a piece of art I actually recognize — Van Gogh’s self portrait, all blues and yellows. An odd choice, and not just for a hospital. The other painting dwarfs it, taking up the whole far wall. It also has a suspiciously thick frame to it, and is poorly lit. It looks like some Hudson River school romantic diorama of some dark and majestic canyons, easily five or six feet long and incongruous in the space. Beneath it is a wide writing desk with a fancy-looking leather chair. 

Too overtaxed to further analyze the room, I give up and try to figure out what to do. It’s hard just lifting the blanket, so I doubt I’ll be able to do much. I feel weak, but ravenously hungry. That’s a good enough place to start: _find something to eat._

Under the blanket I find I have a catheter tube coming out of my stomach, a little to the left of the familiar, ugly, raised scar going down my abdomen. The tube is connected like the IV to something below the side of the bed. I drop the blanket, exhausted from nothing. 

Maybe it will be worth it to try and call for help? 

I try, discouraged as my voice crackles. It doesn’t carry far. Unsurprisingly, nobody comes rushing. 

How did I get here? 

I try punching through the stuffing in my head. There’s hints of things - a house by the ocean, a cliff. Dark and deadly and beautiful wings unfurling in brilliant moonlight. Black blood rushing out, slicking my hands. 

It pooled together to create a great black aperture, and I fell through it into a place that looked the same but different — like a living negative. 

Hannibal had been there. 

Hannibal. The memories start flooding in, faster than I can keep up with. We killed Francis Dollarhyde in the moonlight. I let go of something within myself, as if the last frayed line keeping my soul moored had snapped under duress. I felt freedom. I felt a togetherness like nothing I’d ever experienced in my life. 

I lie in the bed, my breath hitching as I experience it again. Exhausted, I can’t do anything more. 

I also remember that I killed us. 

—

  
  


The next time I wake up, it’s darker in the room and my body is very displeased, even more so than before. The IV bag is still empty; I suspect the catheter is full. 

I call out for help again; no one comes. I’m nauseated, beyond hungry. 

That was what the tube was, right? I concentrate, taking my time to get my hand back up to the tube on my face and slowly tracking the other end of the plastic. After what might have been ten full minutes, I find the end of the tube — it’s connected to nothing. Great. 

I need to eat or I’m going to die. Okay. 

I don’t look too long at my skinny legs - already I know I won’t be able to walk. Still - If I have to crawl out of here, I’ll do it. 

The IV snaps out easily, the catheter disconnects from its tube, and I’m left to figure out my next move. I’m naked under the blankets, not even a thin hospital gown. Oh well. I dump the sheet on the floor, followed by the distinctly plush pillow my head has been sitting on for who knows how long. The floor looks like an awfully long way down and I contemplate it carefully. 

I’m tired again. Weak. Whoever has been taking care of me isn’t around, and maybe something has happened to them, so I’m on my own. If I keep passing out I’m going to starve to death. Was it Hannibal? I thought about Miriam Lass’s testimony detailing her time in captivity. 

I glance at the Van Gogh print, which is harder to make out in the dark but still looking out at me balefully. I narrow my eyes at the three-quarter profile that hides his missing ear. _Yeah. It’s Hannibal._ Okay. 

I fumble around the side of the bed with my hand, ultimately finding a lever. By sliding down the length of the bed slightly, I take pressure off the top half and pull the lever with everything I’ve got. The back of the bed inclines to a sitting position. Breathing heavily, I roll myself upright and take another look around. 

On the side of the bed nearest to the wall, there is a table holding various equipment - large white bottles of medication, cotton swabs, rubbing alcohol. Closest to me, however, there is a business-sized envelope, thick, with _Will_ written on it in a large and very familiar hand. 

I stare at it while I let my body recover from sitting up, not immediately moving to open it. I wonder what’s inside, if it’s full of damnation or praise. I remember the feeling I had when I pulled him close to me, that oneness, the elation, the cupric scent of victory rolling off of us like waves of heat. Death was an afterthought in that moment, the only possible culmination, and I hadn’t stopped to ask him what he felt about it before pulling him down. 

He may well be keeping me alive just to eat me when I wake up. 

I sigh deeply and will the muscles of my arm to reach for the letter. I pull it into my lap, hesitate some more, then spit out a curse as I open it. 

_Dear Will,_

_If you are reading this, I am pleased that you are feeling better. At the time of my writing this, seven months have passed since we transformed dear Francis. You nearly transformed us as well, but I do not hold it against you. As always, you have a delightful propensity for the element of surprise._

_An unfortunate surprise awaits you now as well. You return to life in a very different world from whence you left. You are in Charlottesville, Virginia and have been for some time. This house is safe, as are certain areas outdoors. Generally speaking the outdoors are not safe. You are not in any condition to move around, but if necessity — or obstinance — demands it, please use extreme caution._

_In the back of this property there is a fenced paddock visible from the south windows. Take a look if you’re able. I trap the creatures inside it for experimental purposes. There are, in all likelihood, several million more of them beyond the gate waiting to eat you. I estimate that 90% of the human population has been either eaten or transformed at this time._

_However you mean to surprise me when we reunite, please take caution if you try to leave. I hope you will not. It would be very disappointing if you were to get killed before we saw each other again._

_I have missed you dearly._

_Sincerely,  
_ _Hannibal Lecter_

I read the letter three times, then a fourth before I decide that I have some kind of brain injury and it isn’t going to make more sense the longer I look. 

It raises more questions than it answers. The population decimated? “Creatures”? It unnerves me, not the fantastic imagery but the fact that I don’t see the point of him inventing it. A ruse to keep me from running? Why that, and then why bring up me wanting to leave? 

I don’t want to leave — not yet, anyway. I doubt I can walk. My only thing I want to do is to eat something. I re-fold the letter and place it back in the envelope, wishing I had a pocket. Or some clothes. 

I test my arm strength on the sides of the bed. It’s terrible -- I can’t lift myself at all, but I don’t need to lift myself; only drop a few inches without breaking anything. Moving an inch at a time, I slowly move my legs over the side of the bed until they’re dangling. I feel dizzy. After a short rest, I grip the edge of the bed with both hands and slowly slide myself further and further off the edge, careful to stay positioned over the pillow. 

It takes a few rests, but finally my feet are touching the floor — dark hardwood — and I can shift some of the weight off my arms. Wincing, I spread my grip on the bedside as wide as I can, and when I’m shoulder-level with the edge of the bed I let go. 

I fall ten inches and my ass hits the pillow. It jars my neck, which I hadn’t expected, but it’s not bad. Better than a broken bone, anyway. 

I rest on the pillow for a while, only realizing when I am about to slip off in to sleep that I need to stay awake to find something to eat. There are drawers around me, a few carts stowed under the bed, and with weak arms I start opening anything I can reach. 

I’m doubtful about finding an apple or a granola bar mixed in among the medical gauze and single-wrapped syringes, but to my surprise I do find something else: a handful of green foil pouches with something liquid inside. My heart jumps as I realize it’s some liquid diet mixture. I fumble for the white tube that was still coiled around my ear and find the end, noting an interlocking protrusion at the edge that looks made for the packet in my hand. 

“Please fucking work,” I plead with the package in my hands. It takes a few tries, but I’m able to get the plastic clip at the end of the feeding tube locked into the corresponding plastic aglet on the packet. I give it a squeeze to test it and see something move along the tube. 

Heaving a sigh, I place the packet between my head and the bar at the edge of the bed and let my hand rest on it for good measure. I can feel the nutrients traversing the tube by way of a cold feeling in my sinuses. _Gross_.

All right, the food situation is under control. Now I’m just naked, thirsty and alone. One thing at a time. 

When it feels like the bag is empty, I pick up the letter from Hannibal and start inching my way toward the closet across the room, using the blanket and pillow to reduce friction. I stop three times to catch my breath; my muscles are killing me, but at least I’m not worried about passing out and not waking up again. 

I luck out with the closet, finding not just “some clothes“ but a substantial amount of them - denim pants, cotton undergarments and tee shirts, all brand new with tags and stickers still on. Far above me, I see flannel and buttoned shirts on hangers I can’t reach. Considerate. Importantly, I am able to reach the underwear. 

While I’m trying to decide if I have the energy or patience to put on actual pants over the boxer briefs -- I don't -- I notice there is a big variety of pant sizes. While the stack of T-shirts are all the same size, it's almost as if Hannibal had cleared out the trouser display shelves at a Kohl’s without paying any attention to what he was grabbing.

I idly figure that all cheap clothing looks the same to him and dismiss it, choosing a pair that looks about right for the mess that are my narrow hips. 

Putting the underwear on isn’t as easy as I imagined, and I nearly give up on the t-shirt entirely, but I give myself a few more breaks and even lay down at intervals. I find myself actively hoping Hannibal does come back, even if it is to eat me, because I can’t think of how I’m going to get water if I can hardly sit up unassisted. I should check the drawer with the nutrient packets, maybe there’s something there. 

Later. Finally wrestling my arm and head into a navy blue shirt, I use my last ounce of energy to pull the blanket over myself and promptly drift off.


	2. Not Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will learns about the state of the world. But who are these people and where is Hannibal?

I wake up with chapped lips and cold feet, disappointed to find I’m still on the floor. I’m even more disappointed to find I’m still hungry, and I give the flattened nutrient packet beside me a sour look. 

I wipe crust from my eyes and am surprised again by the lack of feeling on the right side of my face. Everything else hurts, but that lack of sensation worries me. 

There’s light coming in from the windows again, and when my hand brushes against the letter in the envelope, I tenderly take it out again and give it another read-through with the light on my side this time. It doesn’t make any more sense now, but I hear his voice as I read through what’s written there:  _ if necessity — or obstinance — demands it, please use extreme caution. _

Laboriously, I inch my way back across the hardwood to the drawers of supplies. When I have another nutrient pack connected and seeping down toward my stomach, I start trying the other drawers. 

There’s no water I can find in grasping distance. During one of several breaks, I stare at the Van Gogh print dejectedly. 

It’s now lit from the windows across the room, and I frown at it. What is with the picture frame? It’s ornate, gilded almost, heavy-looking. The longer I look at it, the more I start to wonder if it’s really a print. I can make out the raised lines of brush strokes even without my glasses. The artist’s signature is prominent in the corner —  _ prints have the signatures on them, too, right?  _ — the question of why Hannibal might have a  _ real  _ Van Gogh painting —  _ that  _ particular painting — sits uncomfortably in my chest.

I look over at the behemoth landscape painting on the other wall, equally concerned. It was too big to be a print, right? The frame looked like it weighed as much as I did. Why would Hannibal put that there? Why — 

— Why unless it was an actual treasure. If he had access to it, and the wall space. Then why  _ not _ ? 

_ 90% of the human population _ , his letter tells me again. There’s no way it’s the truth. But if there was some kind of large-scale catastrophe, if there was an overbearing imminent threat to life and limb for all, where’s the first place Hannibal Lecter would loot? 

_ Enough of this, _ I tell myself, and I make for the chair. It’s got wheels on it. 

\--

I take a nap before trying to get in the chair. 

I take a nap after making it in to the chair. After barely making it in to the chair. All the same, I’m tired and sore when I wake up, but I can get around easily by pulling my way along the desk, the row of drawers, and the hospital bed. 

I take all the nutrient packets in the drawer and fold them into my t-shirt, secretly hoping that if I can make it to a kitchen there might be real food to eat. Yes, real food from Hannibal Lecter’s kitchen. To eat. I’d worry about it if I made it there. For all I know, I could run into stairs the minute I make it out of the room. 

Pausing to rest by the door, I notice the light switch and give it a try. Nothing happens, which is troubling. I can still hear the muted whine of an A/C unit, maybe coming from outside, so there must be some power somewhere. I take a deep breath and open the door of the room, struggling to maneuver the chair out of the way for it as it swings inward. 

The hall is dark, but not pitch-black. There are paintings on the walls here, too, though I can’t make them out. The hall has a few off-shoots to both closed and opened doors, but at the end of it I can make out a room with some natural light and the corner of a sofa. 

It’s clearly a sizable house, though something about the decor seems off for Hannibal’s tastes: there are no rugs in the hall, no crown molding, the light fixtures are plain. There are bookshelves, but they look empty. 

Gingerly, I start pulling myself down the length of the wall, using the odd bookcase or side table for leverage. I’m tired, but I do feel stronger. Sure, not strong enough to walk, but better than when I was eking along the floor. 

The room at the end of the hall has the look of a typical living room — again, not quite aligning with the Hannibal I know so well. The sofa is designed for comfort, not looks. There’s a flat-screen TV on the wall opposite it, something I would never imagine Hannibal owning even in an alternate dimension — which this might well be. There are scuff marks and rings on the coffee table, a small spiral-bound notebook and — strangest of all — a big lighter, pack of cigarettes and a tube of lipstick. 

I stare at them for a while, attempting to think up a reason for them to be there, but I’m distracted by the windows. 

The far wall of the sitting area is glass, looking out onto a broad wooden deck area. This is the second floor of the home, apparently, or it’s a split-level. Beyond the rail of the deck, dark pine trees stretch up into a swath of pink and purple and blue as the sun sets behind them. I set the nutrient packets on the coffee table where I can reach them easily and start wheeling myself over toward the windows, grabbing hold of another empty bookshelf and the edges of the TV. There are sliding glass doors at the center of the windows. 

_...there is a fenced paddock...Take a look if you’re able _ , Hannibal’s voice rumbles invitingly from the back of my mind. I flip the latch on the door and push it open with one shoulder wedged against the frame for leverage. Cool air hits my face; I feel it on the left side only. It feels good. 

I kick off from the windows and slide across the deck shakily, the wheels of the chair disagreeing with the wood planks. I have to maneuver with my feet a little, feeling the ache in my disused calves and thighs, but I’m eventually able to grab the railing and even lift myself up until I’m balanced on the edge of it. 

True to the letter, there is a paddock in the back yard below me. Directly below me, as it were. It’s easily twenty feet wide, about ten or fifteen deep; not a perfect rectangle. The chain link fencing comes up about ten feet high, an unusual height, clearly intended to dissuade climbers. Or to keep...  _ things _ ... inside. 

The  _ things  _ I’m looking at look a lot like people. A  _ lot  _ like people. 

They are both standing stock still, one about three feet from the fencing furthest away from me, the other with their face pressed up against the chain link directly below me. The closer one looks like a woman, but it’s hard to tell — I don’t have glasses on. 

“Hey!” I shout down, half lifting an arm. “Hey! Hello?” 

Both forms jerk in place, as though alarmed, and slowly they turn their faces toward me. There’s something wrong, very wrong about those faces, but they’re just slightly too blurry for me to make out. It’s almost as if part of their face is missing. 

The figure further away starts taking slow, careful steps toward me, his pale face unwavering as he wobbles across the paddock. Below me, the woman stares up in silence, now clutching the fencing with dirty-looking hands. 

“Hang on,” I croak down at them, projecting as best as I can. “I’ll see if I can help. Are you hurt?” 

The two say nothing, just continue to stare. I honestly don’t know how the hell I can help, but I have to do something — at least try and help them escape before Hannibal can run any more  _ experiments  _ on them. If he’s incapacitated somewhere, or captured, or — whatever, I need to save more than just myself. 

The woman’s hands are clutched into what looks like a gate, one that opens below me into a stone patio area. It means there’s probably a staircase somewhere, but if I venture down, there’s no way I can get back up. I need to think. 

The second figure, maybe male, stops a few feet from the woman and stares up at me, his jaw sagging. It looks like it’s missing entirely, like his skin is sagging right off his bones. I swallow hard against the urge to vomit, clutching at the railing. It doesn’t look like there’s a lock on the gate, but I could be wrong. 

I am feeling for the chair behind me when a bloodcurdling scream pierces the dusk air. Not from below - from behind me. 

My leg muscles, already straining to keep me upright, falter in shock and I drop to the deck, knocking the chair over in the process. I hit my head against the railing and wince, searching in the direction the noise came from, eyes wide. 

The scream dies abruptly - maybe it was more of a shriek. I can’t see far into the room; the sun has fallen behind the trees behind me now, but I can see shapes moving in the dark. 

“Will! It’s Will,” a woman’s voice squeals. 

It’s two figures moving inside the living room, coming closer. As they enter the light from the windows, I can make them out better. 

Two women, as it turns out; they creep hesitantly forward, approaching the open sliding door and pausing at the threshold. One of them looks about fifty, stocky and strong, as much grey as blonde in her frizzy hair. She’s wearing jeans and a blue blouse with ruffles at the front. There is blood speckled on her sleeve. 

Her companion is younger, late twenties or early thirties, also blonde. She has on cut-off shorts and a faded Rolling Stones t-shirt. They’re eyeing me with something akin to horror on their features, jaws slightly agape. 

I find I have no idea what to say. “Help me”? “Run”? My jaw works on its own accord, flapping uselessly.  _ This house is safe, _ the letter had told me. It hadn’t said anything about the people inside of it. 

The older of the two women speaks first, a good countryside accent dancing out over the deck. “Baby, are you okay?” She lifts a hand toward me, palm up. “You be careful by that railing. How’d you get all the way out here?” 

Still miles away from trust, I press myself flush against the railing. “You,” I manage, “you’re — there’s — there’s people — people down —“ 

The words aren’t coming, the thoughts aren’t connecting properly in my mind. I take a steadying breath and imagine that Hannibal is there, maybe behind them, watching me with eyes like pools. It’s a steadying image, like ballast, stabilizing. I take as deep a breath as I can muster.

“—scared to death,” the younger woman was saying. “Let’s get him inside quick.” 

“T-there’s people d-down there in a-a cage,” i manage breathlessly. “They look h-hurt.” 

The women are approaching on either side of me now, and I realize there’s not much I can do if I intend to fight them or get away from them, so I let my aching muscles relax and flop bonelessly against the rails and let them come. 

The older woman tuts over me, checking my forehead and looking in my eyes like a kindly school nurse. She has that look, the rural administrative grandma look: deep creases around her eyes and mouth that make her look permanently unhappy, whether or not she is or isn’t. Smoker’s skin, sallow and grayish, loose around the mouth. She has a toughness in her eyes, however, bright and light brown and moving quickly and intelligently as they scan over my face. I want to like her. 

The younger woman crouches on the other side, the right side, the numb side. She isn’t touching me at first so I don’t get a good look at her immediately, but when I do I see she’s attractive, athletic, but with a weeks-old tiredness hanging over her. The lipstick from the coffee table is hers, it seems, but if the rouge on her lips was meant to brighten her countenance, it was failing. Gathering up my arm and wrapping it around her shoulders, she says nothing. 

“Those aren’t people down there,” the older woman drawls sadly in answer to my plea, putting herself under my other arm and lifting. “You’ll see soon enough. Best stay indoors until you’re feeling better. Damn, you don’t weigh a thing, do you?” 

Apparently not. I am carried easily back across the deck and into the sitting area, where they ease me down onto the practical sofa with care. I’m too tired to move, not even my arms. 

Grandma picks up the lighter from the coffee table and pulls out a wax candle from behind the TV, lighting it and setting it at the center of the room. “Close the door, Tanya. And bring that chair back in. Lord. Tonto is going to lose his mind when he gets back.” 

_ Tonto? _ My heart is still racing, and I feel like passing out again. “They’re not p-people? Are they — they aren’t creatures? Of millions? Like the, like the letter?” The words hover around my head like flies, the wrong ones slipping onto my tongue. I see them shaking their heads at me, frowning, pity in their eyes. 

“Can I — Can I — water? Can, can I please have some water?” I try. 

My head’s too heavy for my neck, suddenly, and I find my chin against my chest. I feel pressure in my sinuses and realize my body’s trying to cry, but I’m too dehydrated. 

There’s a glass of water under my nose immediately, but I don’t notice either of them having gone to fetch it. Great, I’m losing time. Grandma holds my forehead up while the other woman — Tracy? Tanya — gently tips the glass of water into my mouth. I get half of it on my shirt, but I don’t care — it’s the best glass of water I’ve ever had in my life. 

“Don’t you worry about the creatures,” Grandma coos, setting my head back against the back of the sofa. “They can’t get in here, it’s nice and safe. It’s nothing for you to worry about right now.” 

I do feel kind of safe with them flanking me, even if Tanya is still frowning at me, eyes narrowed. I am thinking about falling asleep, sinking in to the couch cushions, and waking up in a day or two to find this was all just a nightmare. 

“You lie here and rest a bit,” Grandma continues. “Hannibal will be back any day now, and boy I know he’ll be real happy to see you awake.” 

My eyes snap back open. _Hannibal._

Grandma has stood up, picking up the cigarettes on the table and moving for the sliding doors again, ostensibly to smoke. Tonya follows her to the threshold, leaning against the windows there. They’ve already half forgotten me. 

“We should try to get the power back on,” Grandma is saying beyond my line of sight, “I haven’t a clue how. But after that run, I need a shower.” 

“I’ll look at the breakers, check the fridge,” Tanya counters casually. She also has a southern drawl, not as pronounced. She eyes me coolly and frowns again, then tells Grandma that she’s going to go check out the back room, too. I assume that’s where I’ve come from. 

“H-Hannibal,” I croak at Tanya. She pauses, half turned from the windows. 

A flash of sympathy crosses her face, but just for a moment. “Hannibal,” she echoes, kneeling down next to me. “Yeah. Hannibal. You remember him, right? Your buddy?” 

_ My buddy _ . I swallow thickly, nod once. It’s one way to describe my relationship to him. “...Your buddy?” I ask. 

Tanya half-grins, a question in her eyes. “Mine? Yeah, my buddy too. Don’t sweat it, he’s out on a supply run. He’ll be back pretty soon, we think. I’m sorry nobody was here when you woke up. Sue and I made a — what was supposed to be a short supply run in the town, but we got held up there overnight. Dumb bitch almost got us killed over a couple cartons of cigarettes.” She smiles through the insult, glancing out to the deck. 

“It’s good to actually meet you,” she adds, though she seems sad as she says it. “Get some rest, Will.” 

I can’t help it. Tanya disappears down through the dark hallway, and I fade out with the smell of burning tobacco tingling at the edge of my senses. 


	3. Squirrel Stew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will gets his bearings.

I’m not sure where I am when I wake up, blinking hazily at a dark room speckled with candles. Slowly it returns to me — the women, the paddock in the yard — and I flinch in place on the couch. My arms and legs and stomach all ache; I can’t support any weight on them and resign myself to lying flat, helpless. 

There’s three or four candles in the room, with more candlelight glowing softly from the hall. I hear a quiet murmur of conversation and the clinking sound of cutlery, but nothing else. 

“Hey,” I call out, as loud as I can. It’s pathetically weak, but the little eating noises from the other room stop abruptly and in a moment I see Tanya at the opening to the hall. 

“Hey,” she says back, patronizingly soft. “How are you doing?” 

The left side of my mouth twitches disdainfully. “Uh. Awful. Thanks.” 

She looks uncertain, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Are you... hungry?” 

I am hungry, but I don’t care. “How long have you been here?” I try again to sit up straighter, lend some kind of authority to my tone, but I can’t. “What is this place? What are those things outside? How did you—“ 

“Hey, slow your roll, little guy,” she interrupts, which only makes me angrier. She steps further into the room and sits down on top of the abused coffee table next to me, knees together. “He said you’ve been out since before it all started. It’s kind of a lot to take in all at once.” 

I narrow my eyes. “Hannibal?” 

“Yeah. He’s been taking care of you. We—“ she glances to the hall. “We all have.” 

“Hannibal is very _caring_ ,” I say through my teeth. 

She catches my contempt, but surprisingly doesn’t look confused — more amused. “Okay, he is a little rough, but he cares,” she looks away, sad again. “About you.” 

A weak chuckle bubbles up out of me. “ _A little rough_ ,” I murmur. “It makes me wonder how rough you’ve seen him be.” 

When Tanya meets my eyes, hers are wide and cold and serious. “I’ve seen,” she says flatly, not elaborating. She raises an eyebrow. “You know, he treats you like his best friend. It never occurred to me that you might not be his.” 

That gets me, though. I stare at the young woman, thinking about the dragon and the black blood and the moment the world flipped. 

“Hannibal is my best friend,” I confirm evenly. “Depending heavily on how one defines friendship.” 

When she doesn’t reply, I sigh heavily. “Since you asked. I could eat something. Actually, I think I have to — uh — go to the bathroom.” 

Tanya appears to consider this for a moment, then nods and stands without saying anything. She returns a minute or two later with a catheter bag and tube, looking a little uncomfortable. Grandma follows her in. 

“You’re usually asleep when we do this,” Tanya explains, sitting back on the table and lifting up my shirt to reveal the tube coming out of my belly. She connects the bag; the tube immediately fills with yellow and I feel oddly exposed and embarrassed. 

Tanya sets the bag on the ground, out of the way, and lowers my shirt. “It’s okay. I’m basically a nurse by now,” she says, catching my discomfort. I shrug, the tiny movement all of which I’m capable. 

“You’re —Tanya, right? ...What’s your name?” I ask the older woman, feeling it’s unfair to keep thinking of her as Grandma. I never knew a grandmother of my own. 

“I’m Sue,” she says. Of course she is. Sue and Tanya.

Sue has a bowl and spoon in her hands and she scoots Tanya out of the way, taking up the seat on the coffee table and leaning in over me. Tanya adjusts my head, sticking a throw pillow behind it - I can’t hold it up on my own. 

“This is delicious stuff,” Grandma Sue crows, spooning a bit of the steaming broth in my direction. “I’ve learned more about cooking in the last six weeks than I ever learned in forty years. Anyway, you need to promise to have a bite before I tell you what it is.” 

I sputter around the spoon, nearly choking on an unexpected burst of laughter. Broth splashes down on top of me. Sue pulls the spoon back with a frown on her face, hesitating until I get myself under control. It takes a minute. 

“It wasn’t that funny,” she scolds. My face is still twisted into an odd half-paralyzed grin when she brings the spoon back to my lips. I taste celery, carrot, an exotic, maybe Indian spice, subtle, and another taste, a particular protein I’ve tasted before - but not for some time. 

“Hannibal’s?” I say after I swallow it. Not really a question. 

“Yeah,” Sue smiles. “Good, isn’t it?” 

I smile, feeling sad.

After the trial -- Hannibal's Trial -- Freddie Lounds had shouted a question at me across the front steps of the courthouse, one short soundbite I pretended not to hear out of an ocean of others that I also pretended not to hear. _Have you gone vegetarian, Will?_ She knew I wasn't going to answer.

As far as I can tell, there are two ways to cope with the knowledge that you've ingested the flesh of a human: swear off meat forever or convince yourself it was just meat. 

This meat is tender and the seasoning is oh, so delicate and aromatic, and by God, I am starving.

“It is good,” I tell Sue, and it's honest. 

She's pleased, as though she cooked it herself. Perhaps she helped. “Ready to hear what it is? — Now, keep in mind, times are tough. It’s not exactly like we can nip down to the KFC anymore.” 

My smile broadens to a grin, then I’m chuckling again. My abdomen hurts from it. “Yeah,” I hear myself saying, “Please. Tell me. What is it?” 

Sue leans in conspiratorially. “It’s squirrel.” 

Of course it is. “Oh. It’s squirrel,” I repeat, still laughing.

“Do you think he’s brain damaged?” Tanya asks Sue, watching dispassionately from the other side of the room. “You know how, when people come out of a coma, they forget things, or they can suddenly talk in foreign languages...”

“I’m not sure that’s true. That sounds like some Days of Our Lives shit,” Grandma Sue counters. She’s lifting another spoonful to my lips, and I accept it in between fits of giggles. 

The Squirrel Stew is hot and uncomfortable in my throat, probably the first thing I’ve eaten in months. I feel a tug on my sinuses and realize the feeding tube is still in, though I still can’t feel it on my face. Sue patiently spoon feeds me the entire bowl, then brings a rag to dab up the mess. 

I can’t tell them what’s in the stew, can’t even hint at it. Not while I am as vulnerable as I am, not while Hannibal is hovering over this place, soon to return. Of course Sue could be lying, she could know full well what it is, not realizing that I know -- but she doesn't exactly strike me as sinister. What kind of character is Hannibal playing in here? How well do they really know him?

Don't they watch the news in Charlottesville, Virginia?

 _S_ _quirrel stew._ They can’t know. 

Still. Tanya had looked chilled when she talked about his _roughness_. I think she may have an idea. It’s a start. 

Tanya’s thinking along the same lines as me, now leaning against the wall of windows with her arms crossed. “So how do you and Hannibal know each other, anyway?” She asks me, her demeanor casual, disinterested. Fake. 

No. They won't get the recipe for the stew. Not right now. If Hannibal has these people here, there's a practical reason and it might not necessarily be _meal planning_. “We go way back,” I hedge, not sure of whatever story he’s told these women or the importance of holding it up. “Let’s just say we know each other very thoroughly.” 

It sounds kind of sexual, the way it comes out of my mouth, and I hadn’t intended it to, but I let it stand without correction. It wasn’t a lie, after all. Didn’t I know the inside of his mind better than I know my own wif—

 _Molly_. 

My wedding ring is missing from my finger. Why hadn’t I noticed it before? I glance out the windows. It’s dark, now, proper autumn wilderness dark, and the sloping yard and trees are lost with the sunlight. 

_90% of the human population._

I pick up the letter in its envelope, which has been crushed by my side for however long I’ve been out. Without opening it, I look between Tanya and Sue and carefully ask my question. “He left me this letter,” I start quietly, “It talks about creatures, about this wide-scale catastrophe. He says the world has changed.” 

“It’s true,” Sue says flatly, not looking up. 

“It’s all true,” Tanya confirms. 

“What happened? Where —“ How do I ask this? “How can I find out if my wife and son are all right? They’re in —” 

The women exchange a look. I hesitate, realizing sullenly that I don’t have the slightest idea of where they are. The morning we set out to fake Hannibal's escape, Walter's grandparents were flying in from the West Coast, already talking about moving their daughter and grandson home with them whether I liked it or not. That, apparently, was months ago. 

“When exactly did all this happen?” I demand when they don’t answer.

“Uh. February,” Tanya answers, nodding to herself. “Seems like no time at all, really.” 

It was February when we fell. “And it’s, what, September?” 

“November. Almost December.” Ten months, not seven. The letter was sitting for a while. 

Tanya swallowed thickly, not looking at me. I stare at her, waiting for my answer, and slowly she obliges. “So... it happened quick. The, uh, the police and fire departments stopped responding fast. Hospitals were all mobbed. There were a few days when you’d hear helicopters overhead all the time; that stopped pretty fast. News reporting was good for a while, but you could see the networks weren’t quite holding it together. They said it was worldwide. 

“Power went out after a week, so no more news. A little bit on the radio. A lot of people tried to leave, I think the smart people stayed inside and hid for longer, but then people started getting hungry, so you got people like me and Sue and Meg and Bree who left home late to try to find safety.”

I listen with rapt attention. “Safety from what?” 

“Them,” Grandma Sue answered, shrugging and looking out toward the back yard. “The dead.” 

— 

“How?” I keep repeating. “How? Dead, like, dead? Like brain-dead?” 

“Dead like doornail,” Tanya huffs, impatient. “Nobody knows the answer. You come back after five, ten minutes, but you’re just a husk. Like those things out there. Nobody’s home.” She stomps across the sitting room, flustered, and makes for the hall. “I’m going to look at the breaker panel again. Hannibal won’t be happy if all the food in the fridge goes bad.” 

“Are you crazy? He’s going to be over the moon because Will woke up,” Sue calls after her, sighing when there is no response. She takes another throw pillow and props me further up on the couch, offering a comforting smile. “It’s hard to talk about the beginning, sweetheart. Everybody’s lost someone. Some have lost everything. We were lucky we met Tonto when we did. First good thing to happen to all of us.” 

That name again. I narrow my eyes. “Who is Tonto?” I ask her. “ _Hannibal_ is Tonto?” 

Sue smiles wickedly in reply. 

_Unbelievable._ I have no words. How is this woman still alive? “Do you call him that to his face?” I ask the old woman, incredulous.

Sue waves a hand dismissively, unbothered. I guess it’s possible Hannibal wouldn’t understand the reference. It is an odd association, though — the racist caricature of a Native American stoic and the polished, charming, erudite Dr. Lecter. Confused, I let this slide. 

“Fear turns men into beasts,” she continues, “and the four of us, we met our fair share of beasts. We nearly didn’t make it. But Hannibal saved us. He showed us there are still gentlemen in the world — well, at least one. We’ve been here a few months now. It’s a _biiig_ improvement to life on the outside.” 

“Where are the others?” I ask as carefully as I can. “How many of us are there?” By the sound of things, disappearing into the stew has gotten a lot easier since I’ve been away. 

Before Sue can answer, yellow light floods the hall and a red digital light blinks awake on the bottom of the big TV screen. The discrete hum of electricity flicks through the building like a sigh. Sue gasps, excited, and stands up to turn on a floor lamp in the corner of the room. “She got the power on. I’ll be damned.” 

The room comes alive in the lamplight. It isn’t large, but can probably seat five or six without me hogging the couch. More intricately framed artwork fills the walls here; one is certainly Renoir’s _Luncheon of the Boating Party_ , and I’d guess the other is a Monet, but I can’t name it. It’s dizzying to think they are originals, here, in this middle-America residential space. 

“We should think about getting you back to the back room, since the, the, the -- that machine business in there ought to be working again.” I remember the quiet hulk of equipment in the corner of the room I woke up in and distantly wonder how much was keeping me asleep rather than simply monitoring my condition. I don’t want to go back to that room, not after it took so much effort getting out of it. 

Sue sighs, turning toward the hall. I can hear footsteps on stairs from elsewhere in the building. “You got it on?” Sue shouts. 

“I kicked the jenny and it coughed right up. Turn off everything that’s not essential.” Tanya peeks her head into this room, eyeing me and dismissing me. “If Bree and Chee aren’t back before Hannibal, we should try and move him back to his room.” 

_My room_. “I’m good here,” I assert cooly. 

The two women look at me with uncertainty, then each other, then the other end of the hall. Neither speaks, unsure how to reply to that. 

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” I accuse them, suddenly emboldened. 

Neither woman jumps to argue, confirming well enough that I’m right. I feel my heart rate jump and do my best to hide the trembling that has taken over my hands. “You’ve been here two months, you said. I know how it happened. The world turned terrifying on you. Normalcy shattered. You saw the worst humanity had to offer. Looting. Violence, panic. And in steps Hannibal, a soothing voice in a dismal universe. A safe haven. A smile and a hot meal, an open hand reaching out for you in the dark.” 

They’ve stilled, arms fallen to their sides, and I know I have their full attention. Good. “He tells you what to do, doesn’t he? And it’s nice, just having instructions to follow. A hand to hold. Have you ever stopped to ask yourselves what’s in his other hand?” 

Tanya’s brow furrows at this and she steps toward me, clenching her fists. She isn’t defensive — she’s angry. Color flushes up her throat. 

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she spits down at me, the sneer on her face bordering on feral. “No idea — the things out there? You saw them -- try having fifty of them between you and the nearest shelter. Do you have any idea what it's like trying to decide if you should shit outside where you might get killed or inside in the same room where you have to sleep? Because we sure as shit did that before we got here. Whereas you’ve been sleeping in there gloriously unaware —“ 

“I've been through plenty,” I interject. My teeth grind. 

“—What they did to us out there, what we lived through — what that _little kid_ lived through —“ her coherency starts to fumble. Tanya pauses, gathering herself, then lifts a finger to jab at me. “He could — Hannibal could have a, a knife, in his hand, and we—“ 

I'm laughing again. Tanya drops her finger, the fury faltering. She breathes out, frustrated, then turns her back to me. Sue touches her arm, face crossed with concern, but says nothing. 

The silence is broken by a growing rumbling noise from outside, peppered by a series of noticeable squeals - a hydraulic hiss; the sound of a large truck approaching. Both women look to the far end of the room in unison, toward a closed interior door, and glance at me again, waiting and listening. 

After five or six seconds listening to the rumble of a distant, idling engine, the faint sound of a car alarm blips once, twice, three times. 

“He’s back,” Tanya rumbles. 


	4. Quiet Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal's back. Surprises abound.

The three of us sit quietly in our separate corners of the room, waiting. The argument’s been put on hold, but it’s not forgotten: I have the distinct impression that we are all waiting for _dad_ to get home to settle things for us. 

Tanya, still glowering, moves across to Sue to whisper something in her ear, garnering a nod from the older woman; they look at me, I look at them. 

We wait for Hannibal. 

Small sounds from outside herald his approach: the rattling of a gate, a rolling sound, like wheels grinding on metal — garage door? — a door opening, closing, a rustling. Another, closer door closing, and then the interior door the women are eyeing swings open and the stag is stepping through it. 

It shakes wet feathers from its neck, sharp hooves on the dark hardwood, and it's gone.

I recognize Hannibal by his height and shape first; he is not how I remember him last. His hair is longer for starters, sandy brown and grey strands tumbling down well over his eyes, the rest of it pulled back. He’s tanner than he’d been, pallorless from years at BSHCI. Somehow the most surprising thing is his clothes — heavy cargo pants under a long utility jacket, a far cry from both the ostentatious suits and the prisoner jumper that I associate him with in my head. 

When my eyes make it to his face, I find him looking right back at me. 

“Hello, Hannibal,” I say. 

We stare in silence. It feels like minutes, but it’s probably just a handful of seconds. 

“Will woke up,” Grandma Sue offers idly, as though it isn’t obvious. 

Passively, I notice someone has entered behind him, a child by the height. Walter’s age, eleven or twelve at most, short brown hair cut straight across the cheekbones. I don’t linger long enough to clock their gender; later. 

Hannibal and I do not look away from each other; the world at our periphery dulls and slows. 

His face is fixed, unreadable, at least at first. As I stare I watch his jaw open and his lips begin to form a word, but his throat catches. He shuts his mouth and swallows hard. 

As the seconds tick by without him saying anything, I notice his shoulders lifting and falling ever so slightly, his chest expanding with heavy breaths. 

_Yeah, it’s me,_ I think bitterly. _Or weren’t you expecting a surprise?_

“May I have a word with you in private?” I ask eventually. 

For a moment Hannibal does nothing, as though I haven’t spoken. Then whatever it is that stills him, whatever stupor he has just from looking at me, releases all at once and he turns away, making himself at home. 

The three of us - no, four, now -- watch patiently. Hannibal pulls, consecutively, two satchels off of his left shoulder: one large leather carry-all, the other smaller, like binoculars. He sets them both down gently on a sideboard by the door and starts to unfasten his oversized coat. He does not rush. His expression is guardedly blank. 

Underneath the coat he is slimmer than I remember -- lean, not gaunt. He has on a thick red and brown sweater, better suited to him than the coat, but still suspicious in that it is more functional than aesthetic. 

Behind him, the child -- a better look doesn’t clarify their gender -- stares at me mistrustfully. Taking notice, Hannibal touches the child’s arm to get his or her attention and then gestures down the hall. The kid shuffles out of the room, eyeing me suspiciously. 

Sue and Tanya stand up, hesitating, as Hannibal still remains silent. There’s no sign of fear from them, only uncertainty: do they honor my request for privacy, or wait for instructions? It seems that I got that part of this family dynamic right, at least. 

Hannibal drapes his coat onto a hook on the wall, then inclines his head in greeting to the women. He gestures them toward the hall with a polite open hand, too, this time adding a respectful little bow. 

_Ha. Dismissed_ , I think callously.

Tanya and Sue take the invitation to leave without booking an argument. Tanya gives me a thinly veiled glare as she passes the sofa, and in the next moment Hannibal and I are alone together. 

“I don’t even get a hello?” I grouse as he steps toward me. I keep my voice low, not sure how private the conversation really is; there’s no door to the hall. 

Hannibal bends to relocate a pen and notebook from the edge of the coffee table and takes his time lowering his long frame down to sit there, just as Tanya and Sue had as they tended to me. My vision narrows in as he settles, no more than two feet away; all my senses sharpen even as the room around us fades. This proximity chills and calms me at the same time, like being trapped beneath the surface of a frozen lake. That much hasn’t changed a bit.

I’m not the only one having conflicting feelings of relaxation and alarm. Though he’s controlling his breathing better now, something is different about the line of Hannibal’s back. It’s still very straight, but there is an unusual softness there.

Is there? Maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe it’s fatigue. 

He still hasn’t said anything, which must be a first — in fact, it’s practically rude. I close my eyes and let out a sigh, resigning myself to fate amidst the throw pillows. I look like a disaster, thin, shaking slightly, hair in my eyes — and I am defenseless, but that knowledge carries its own degree of peace. I let my muscles give up and lay back. 

“I’ve been talking to your friends,” I try quietly. “They shared some very nice _squirrel stew_ with me. Told me about — things that happened. I’d still like to hear it from you. ...If you don’t mind.” 

His eyes flick from my face to the crumpled envelope in my lap and back, inventorying. After a moment of consideration, he picks up the pen and the notepad beside him and writes. 

I wait, curious. Maybe the conversation really isn’t private. 

Presently he tears the little piece of paper free and passes it across to me. To my frustration, I can’t lift my arm; he compensates by holding the paper in front of my face. 

_I am glad to see you awake_ , the note says. 

I pull a face. That kind of message garners no secrecy, surely. “What, you’re not talking?” I mutter. 

He shakes his head, just a single sideways jerk of his chin. The movement sits in the air between us for a minute as the meaning takes hold.

“Are you — all right?” I ask him, dumbfounded. 

Immediately I wonder why that came out of me. Either he has never been all right in his life, or he is always all right, and both alternatives make the question superfluous. Besides, I don’t care particularly about his well-being. 

He appears to consider the question, his lips pressing together for a second, but he does not move his head nor turn to the notepad to answer. 

“Physiological or psychological, Doctor?” I press. 

It is the wrong thing to say. As the words leave me I watch his eyes narrow by a fraction, tightening at the corners. His lips go back to their firm line. 

“All right,” I concede quickly. “...forget it. It just — seems wrong. Not to mention inconvenient.”

Hannibal’s expression softens — again, just fractionally -- and his eyebrows hike a little as he silently agrees with me. 

“Twenty questions, then,” I sigh. “We have dead — ah, dead people. Rising from the dead. Eating people alive, which I wish I could say was new territory.” 

He nods. 

“Police, government... Society. All gone?” 

He nods. 

I want to ask about Molly — but he is the wrong person to ask. It’s better if I don’t remind him. My nose itches; I can’t lift my arms to scratch. “It’s just — you. And me. And — your, what, your _harem_?” 

Hannibal’s lips twitch upward at the corners at this; a sparkle of excitement crackles in his irises. 

Frowning, I drop my voice even lower, mouthing around a whisper. “Emergency rations?” 

He blinks and purses his lips minutely, then looks up toward the ceiling. He isn’t smiling, but he isn’t not smiling. _Well, now that you mention it,_ the expression says. I think about the little kid that came in with him and find I’m sweating in a cold room. 

As if reading my mind, Hannibal’s brow furrows and he reaches across to place a hand on my forehead, then the left side of my face. His hand is cool and dry, and it feels good. He stares into my eyes almost sadly and lets his thumb stroke along my cheekbone — just for a second — then quickly pulls back to resume writing. 

The paper he shows me presently has a series of diagnostically themed questions on it, starting with _What is the last thing you recall?_ I swallow hard and give it my best. 

“I remember... the Great Red Dragon. And after that, the... uh. The fall. Well. Part of it.” I force myself to look at him, not an easy task. Every molecule in my body wants to look away. When I manage it, his face is a mask, not hinting his feelings about our -- my -- attempted murder/suicide. 

I run through the other questions quickly, rattling off when I ate and how my muscles feel and whether or not I took any medication yet. I am still distracted from the first question. I need to know if he’s going to strike, I want to have it out properly if it needs having out. This mutism is not helping.

_I feel like shit, I can’t move, I’m cold, everything aches, I still feel like passing out._ Hannibal makes me track his finger from left to right, taking a special interest in the right side of my face. He taps my cheek and, guessing at his question, I tell him it just feels numb. 

He seems satisfied with my answers — at least the ones about my physical health. He picks up the letter from my lap and takes it out of the envelope, unfolding it and holding it in front of my face as he had for the notes. 

He pinches the paper next to a line near the top: _You nearly transformed us as well. I do not hold it against you._

“Is that so?” I say softly, not believing it. 

Hannibal doesn’t nod to confirm. Instead, he leans in and places a hand on me — my chest, over my clavicle, close to my neck. It rests heavily there, half over my shirt, half on my skin. He does not break eye contact. 

It is a peaceful, solid touch, and for a minute I feel like our heartbeats are connected through my skin and his hand and his arm. I feel the blood rushing in my neck, that flight or fight adrenaline kicking in again, sensing danger. Crisp. Crackling. It’s a danger I know well, now. A danger I’ve channeled through my body itself. 

His hand slips upward, apropos of nothing. With the tiny movement and the repositioning of his thumb, his hand envelopes my neck. 

The pressure is slight, not enough to cut off my air, just enough to hint at the potential of a good firm squeeze — and I stare at him, that cool calm returning. It’s the same feeling of black blooded freedom washing over me, the rush I felt as I lunged at the dragon, the force in me which pulled us together and pulled us down. The razor’s edge of life and death. 

And I understand. 

He sees it in me, the moment I feel that switch flip in my head. The world inverts to its negative again. I gasp -- not for lack of air -- and I feel myself open, and I feel him inside me, or myself inside him. 

Oh. _Oh._

Hannibal takes his hand from my neck. 

—-

  
  


He carries me down the hall, back toward the room with the Van Gogh. 

Beyond exhausted now and slightly dazed, I try to explain why I don’t want to go in there without sounding too much like a four-year-old protesting bedtime. Hannibal ignores me. 

As he maneuvers my head and legs out of the way of the protruding bookshelves and tables, we pass an open door spilling light into the hall. I catch a glimpse of the others, three owlish faces, seated at a dining table as they watch us go by. The table looks bare. 

Hannibal turns on the light in the room, setting me back on the hospital bed and closing the door behind us. I know sleep is for the best, but I can’t help feeling like a prisoner returned to his cell. What was so bad about the sofa? 

He produces a fresh pillow and sheet from a high shelf in the closet and tucks me in tenderly with my clothes still on, taking care to reconnect my IV first. His expression is soft — loving, even — though my protests continue to fall on deaf ears. 

“Please, I almost starved,” I beg him, wincing at the whining tone to my voice. “I just need to know what’s going on. I want to know who those people are -- I deserve that much -- Please, I don’t want to wake up alone again.”

This gets his attention. It’s little more than his eyes flicking back to my face from the medicine shelf, but something I’ve said catches his interest. He immediately looks away, rummaging through the same lower drawers I had looted earlier. When he straightens back to full height, he is unwrapping a single-use syringe. I feel myself deflating. 

“Hannibal, please,” I try again. 

Hannibal uncaps the syringe and picks up a small vial from the shelf. He looks at the label and the level of the clear liquid inside, then he does something unexpected: he holds the vial up label-first for me to read. 

I don’t recognize the name of the medicine, but I do understand the gesture for what it’s worth. _This is what I’m giving you,_ it says.

The Old Hannibal wouldn’t have bothered. 

He draws a careful dosage and presses the syringe into the tube of the IV. My only comfort is knowing that if he were going to kill me, it wouldn’t be like this. 

“Don’t leave me,” I plead. My sinuses burn again, unable to function. 

Hannibal pats my arm with a faint smile on his lips. The chemical hits me like a wave closing over my head, and I don’t care much about anything after that.


	5. Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will meets a child, gets a look at some monsters of the inhuman variety, and catches a whiff of some tension in this bizarre household.

It takes me some time to remember my last, pleading request when I wake up. Despite my fuzzy reckoning, it seems to have been granted: when I wipe the crust from my eyes, I see Grandma Sue across the room, reading in the fancy office chair. 

“Hello,” I mumble. 

Sue starts with a little jolt. 

“Ah,” she crows, rough voice crackling in the quiet. She puts the paperback down and, peeling off a thin set of reading glasses, rises from the chair with some effort. “Good morning sunshine,” she calls cheerfully. “Feelin’ any better?” 

I don’t, not really, but I’m not tired any more, which is an improvement. Instead of explaining, I tell her yes. 

“Can I — get up?” I ask, hopefully eyeing the chair she’s vacated. “I don’t like this room. I — I want to — I want to see what’s going on. I’ve got — questions.” 

Sue smiles, her laugh lines folding. “I don’t blame you, after all this time in here. Enough is enough, right?” 

I smile along with her to keep the peace. She heads for the door, leaving the paperback behind. “I’ll go tell him you’re awake.” 

Rushing back to Papa Hannibal. They are very well trained. 

“When did he stop speaking?” I call out, halting her exit. “...Hannibal. Obviously.”

Sue turns to me with her eyes narrowed, now highlighting her frown lines. She seems surprised by the question. Eventually she shrugs, dismissive. “I’ve never heard him speak,” she admits casually. “Just thought he was hurt or something.” 

She considers it for a moment longer. “Actually, at first we all thought he might be re— uh— mentally, you know. Back at the camp where we first saw him. But we know better now.” Sue gestures to my hospital corner. “Obviously. Doctor and everything. And we know we’re blessed. ...and now we got you. Double blessed!” She smiles, just a little too fake. I wonder what he said to her -- or wrote to her — about me, about our past.

 _Mentally you know_. The thought of Hannibal having brain damage — new brain damage — is uncomfortable to grapple. Damaged, sure. That isn’t hard. He was damaged long ago, fundamentally, but seeing it exposed casually is unsettling. 

For him to have that base means of expression suppressed — it must be incredibly humbling. And humbling Hannibal is critically dangerous. 

I think about the stately mind palace, the framework for his brain, and imagine what kind of hole might have punched through the part connecting the long wing devoted to language. I just as soon shake it off; it doesn’t matter. We hardly need to speak to understand each other now. I’ve seen the back of his skull. 

It might be worth it to see him squirm a little, I think darkly. 

“He wants me to tell him that you’re awake,” Sue says, glancing at the door. 

I nod and she leaves with another polite smile. I’m left staring at Van Gogh again. It makes me think about ears, so I touch my right one and find the feeding tube is gone. 

I’m still poking at the numb patch of skin between my temple and my jaw when Hannibal breezes in. 

He’s wearing something more familiar to see, a button-down shirt rolled to the elbows over tan trousers. They’re not exactly haute couture: the clothes compliment each other, but they’re still machine-washable. His little ponytail looks ridiculous; I opt not to tell him. 

The child from the night before follows him in. I decide it’s a young girl — today she has on a blue shirt with a flower on the front, about as good an indicator as any, and there’s a hint of makeup on her, too, worn as a child might when experimenting with mother’s things. 

The girl hovers at the edge of my bed while Hannibal fusses with the machine in the corner, staring at me with the same uneasy expression that children have given me ever since I was one myself. 

“What’s your name?” I ask her. 

She is skittish; I doubt she will reply. She stares at me for a moment then looks at Hannibal, who’s checking my blood pressure. 

He inclines his head slightly. 

“Meg,” the girl says. 

I think about Abigail. 

“My name’s Will Graham,” I tell her, my voice raspy — probably terrifying. “Nice to meet you.” 

She just stares. 

Hannibal pokes at me for a few minutes, then starts work on my arms and legs: flexing them, loosening the withered and largely useless muscles. His motions are perfunctory, clinical, almost rushed; not quite gentle and not quite rough. I have trouble determining where to look as he lifts and bends my legs. Sick of the artwork and not wanting to scare the kid, I watch Hannibal’s face as he works. 

It’s intimate, uncomfortable, but I can feel that black pool, the hem of the veil, and sense the tingling of the world-in-negative beyond it, the place where he stops and I start. It’s a terrifying place, but it’s calm. I will my heart rate into a steady beat and relax into it. 

Hannibal gets the girl’s attention and tells her, without words, to get a shirt from the closet across the room. I follow his meaning easily; as mimes go, he is a very respectable one: he tugs at the front of his shirt and points at the closet, and it’s enough to get the message across. 

Meg opens the closet, considers the contents, then pulls out one of the flannel shirts — blue, brown check. “This one?” She asks — him, not me. 

Ha, why ask me? 

Hannibal nods once, dismissively and decisively. Irritatingly, it is absolutely a shirt I would choose for myself. 

I take it as a sign that I get to leave the room soon and do my best to lift my arms where appropriate as Hannibal dresses me. I’m still wearing the other clothes I struggled in to yesterday, and the two of them proceed to finish the job with socks and shoes. I sincerely hope I won’t be expected to walk anywhere. 

Hannibal looks at the girl -- Meg -- and mimes _coat_ or maybe _sweater_ — stately, again, elegant motions — and gestures out of the room. Meg leaves without hesitating. 

“Feeling paternal, Hannibal?” I ask him wryly when she’s gone. 

_Somewhat_ , his expression says. I leave it at that. 

When Meg returns they wrap me in a thick blue sweater a few sizes too big. The two of them slide into their own jackets, and with little fanfare Hannibal picks me up from the bed in one smooth movement. 

I’m able to lift and wrap both of my arms around his shoulders, but most of the effort is his. In the huge sweater, being carried, I feel more like a child than ever — but I put my pride aside, glad to be leaving my sickroom. 

We run into Tanya directly outside the door, while Hannibal is gently angling me so my head clears the frame. The young woman starts, nearly dropping a big red gas canister in her arms. 

“Oh, sorry,” she says, shaking her head to clear loose fringe from her line of sight. Her face suffers a fast assault of expressions: genuine surprise and concern, then a better-controlled neutral sheen with a hint of acid reprehension around the edges. I figure it’s on my account. 

It’s nothing for me to take a look at us through those acid eyes; I slide into her head like a vapor. Hannibal, standing before her, is a handsome and rugged frontier god. He walks on water. In contrast, there’s this Will: a sickly wraith clinging to him, a _man_ — Jeez, she _isn’t_ fond of men — this one is a flopping rag doll of a creature, trembling and scarred. But all the same, he’s cradled in Hannibal’s arms - body like a physical barrier.

And I hate it, I hate that he’s holding _him_ and not — I’m — 

\-- No, not I. _She_. She, Tanya. 

_She_ is jealous. Absolutely green to the gills at the sight of me. 

_God_ , I think, _not again._

“Got the gas,” Tanya tells Hannibal, tight lipped. “Going outside?”

Outside. I wasn’t thinking about the state of the world when I watched Hannibal and the kid put coats on. _Generally speaking, the outdoors are not safe_ , the letter said. 

I have a good view of Hannibal’s polite smile of a reply from six inches away. He’s shaved today, I also notice, and is wearing a light cologne. Some habits, then, do endure.

We maneuver past Tanya into the hall, this time stopping halfway down it and angling through an interior door to the right. A stairwell presents options to go up or down; we go down. Tanya follows Meg behind us, a weird little parade that makes the floorboards groan. 

The structure itself is old, evident from the wear on the hardwood and the little settling sounds, but the maintenance is good. There are modern renovations even in the stairwell: tidy baseboards and crown molding, sharp paintwork, tight windowsills on panes that likely point out to a front yard. It’s hard to tell; the windows are boarded up with plywood. The landing at the foot of the stairs is stacked ceiling-high with firewood and oversized brown boxes. 

As we descend, I glance up behind Hannibal’s shoulder to get another look at Tanya, still struggling with the gasoline jug. She meets my gaze briefly; the chagrin is still there, moderately suppressed, and she looks away quickly. I do the same — it’s awkward. Without thinking, I tighten my arm around Hannibal. 

At the foot of the stairs, Meg brushes past my legs to the only door and starts flipping latches open with enthusiasm. The door had been unremarkable at one point; now a large metal panel is bolted into the wood at four corners. Plywood covers what must have been a row of windows looking out into a rear garden - a space modified from aesthetic to functional, and the function is security. There’s a distinct draft, a harbinger of the weather to expect outside the door. 

Meg flips one of the two deadbolts on the door before Hannibal makes a noise at her, the first sound I’ve heard from him. It’s a small hiss, tongue and teeth, A wordless command that I might use on a dog. 

Meg halts with her hand on the latch, turning around with a frown. Begrudgingly, she moves over to a rudimentary hinged panel of plywood and opens it, stretching out onto her toes to peer through it into the back yard. 

“There’s nothing,” she reports after a few seconds, and returns to finish opening the door. 

A blast of cold air hits my face, or half of it. I don’t remember last night feeling this chilly. Grateful for the sweater, I am carried sideways through the door onto a cement patio that directly abuts the chain link pen. Beyond that, all detail falls by the wayside. 

Not ten feet from me, uttering long and mournful groans, something horrible watches me from inside the cage.

I can’t look away from it. It’s the thing I remotely identified as female from up on the deck; long, matted hair, skin draping over the hollows of her eye sockets and jaw bones. Her mouth is open — wider than natural — with black and yellow rotted teeth exposed beyond a missing lip. Her eyes, dead-white, are looking directly at me. 

_Hungry_ , I think. _I’m so_ — 

— It. _It’s so hungry._

There’s nothing more behind those eyes, no motive of fear or anger, no pain. It’s not even an animalistic hunger, tempered by caution or familial instinct. It is a manifestation of the pure urge, and I am the prey.

Distantly I recognize that I’m being set down in a chair, and then the bite of the wind is choked off and I notice Hannibal’s wrapped me in a blanket. Hannibal is very caring. The spell is broken. 

“Thanks,” I mumble, dazed. 

I get my bearings. The patio is nothing special. A few folding chairs, a propane grill and a large generator take up the space not stacked with more firewood. 

Tanya sets down the gas can and watches the creature with her arms crossed and her mouth pressed into a firm line. Meg takes a twig from the wood pile and throws it against the chain link, rattling it a little. 

Hannibal is watching me. 

“This was a person?” I ask the three of them. 

“Yeah,” Tanya answers. 

“Who?” 

The thing has tattered clothing, hardly more than ribbons, but it might have been a business suit once. One sleeve is gone, revealing exposed white bone and flesh so mottled and deteriorated it’s black and green. The scent of decomposition is awful and familiar. 

“Sometimes they have a wallet with an ID in it,” Tanya says by way of an answer. “Not always.” 

I look at Hannibal. He’s still watching me, stone-faced, assessing. It isn’t obvious, but there’s a question somewhere within his expression. 

_See?_

“I see,” I mutter, returning my attention to the monster. 

Movement beyond her in the pen revealed that the second one was approaching — slow, wobbly, but resolute. Driven by hunger. 

Something snaps, loud, close to my head. The girls and I jump, but it’s just Hannibal, who has clapped his hands together with force. The monster beyond the gate diverts her attention to him. 

“Yeah, see?” Tanya points. “They react to sound. Light, too, but mainly sound.”

“Do you want the stick?” Meg asks Hannibal. He nods once. 

Meg retrieves the object. It’s less of a stick and more of a pole, about six feet of thick aluminum piping with a sturdy metallic cable threaded through the center. 

I watch in wonder as Hannibal slides the pole through a space in the chain link and loops the cord around the creature’s arm and neck, tightening and clamping the cable from his end. Satisfied, he hands the pole back to the child. 

Meg leans back hard on the pole, pulling the creature flush against the fence, pinning it in place. It snaps its teeth on air, still snarling at the four of us. 

The second one has slowly labored over the stretch of the yard and now runs into the fence, incognizant of its existence. Halted by the obstacle, it lifts its single arm and presses its rotted body up against the metal. This one’s teeth snap, too. 

Hannibal looks at Tanya and gestures to the second creature as though to say, “this one is yours.” Taking a deep breath, the young woman grabs a second pole from its place by the door and approaches the fence cautiously. 

Her nervousness is evident as she lassos the creature through the links and clamps the cable with shaking hands, but her face is firm and resolved. 

“Okay,” Tanya reports, “what now?”

“We gonna kill em?” The little girl says hopefully, still holding her own pole. She glances over her shoulder at me, as though remembering I’m there, and the excitement evident on her face falters. I am still a potential threat, and there’s no lasso for me. 

Hannibal takes Meg’s pole and gestures for Tanya’s. Taking some meaning from him, Tanya hands over her pole and pulls a long, shining machete from out of sight behind the wood pile. 

“Okay, I’ll go first,” Tanya says, her shaking hands betraying her firm voice. “Which one? —I’ll take the big one. Okay.”

Hannibal can’t watch me now as he leans back, pinning both creatures in place. Brandishing the machete in front of her, Tanya wills herself forward to the gate and shakes out anxiety through her arms. 

She unwraps a thick chain from the edge of the gate, flinching as both things pull in her direction at the noise. She has about a foot of clearance from the right side, and she breathes shakily into the bare, snapping jaw of what was once a man. 

She wrestles the gate ajar and fumbles to clutch the machete in both hands, slipping past the creatures to approach from behind them. 

Her fear is getting to me. My legs twitch under the blanket, belying an instinct to run that I can’t fulfill. The gate is open, and even though Hannibal is holding them firm, I feel the increased risk. The creatures are more animated now, groaning hungrily and pulling against the metal cord in attempt to get at Tanya. 

“Get him, get him,” Meg chirps out, bouncing on her toes. 

Tanya grimaces and throws herself forward at the thing, swinging high with the machete. It catches the male at the side of the head, angled down, and the blade neatly slices through its ear and sinks several inches into its neck. 

Tanya yelps, realizing the blow wasn’t critical, and nearly loses the machete as she trips backward. If the creature felt or even noticed the wound, it doesn’t react. 

“Again, swing again,” Meg cheers her on. 

Teeth bared, Tanya yanks on the machete and pulls it out of the creature’s neck. Hannibal leans back further with the two poles, levering against the agitated struggling. He glances over his shoulder at me, making sure that I’m watching. 

I’m watching. 

Tanya reels back with the machete, stepping close to the other creature inadvertently. She corrects as it grabs for her with rotted, spindly fingers, alarm plain on her face. 

Steadying herself, she squares her feet and approaches the male again, holding the machete back like a baseball bat. This time, she angles the blade closer to horizontally, and the chrome metal connects squarely with its skull with a sickening thunk. 

The reaction is instant; the creature stills, its arms falling to its sides, and he collapses against the fence lifelessly. Tanya releases the machete and gasps heavily, an open expression of exhilaration and wonder on her face. I feel what she feels, the tingling rush of power and freedom, and I think about Dollarhyde on the cliff. 

“Don’t drop the machete,” Meg warns her. 

Hannibal sets the lasso on the ground, its function served, and looks at me again. _See?_

“I see,” I answer him aloud. 

Tanya pulls at the hem of her sweater and brushes at her hair, adopting a more confident laissez-faire mask to cover the flushed high of the kill. She approaches the stilled corpse and yanks hard on the machete, loosening it from its mark, and turns to the second creature. 

“My turn,” Meg announces, excited. 

“Okay. Come here,” Tanya tells her. Meg bounces forward, inching through the opening of the gate and joining her in the paddock. 

Beyond the edge of the paddock, dark lumbering figures enter my field of vision. Three or four, at least, moving slowly toward the sounds of a struggle. I flick my eyes between the blurry shapes I can make out, comforting myself knowing the paddock sits between us. “T—there’s others. Coming from the woods,” I mutter to Hannibal. 

He turns his head to me and nods reassuringly. At the end of the pole, the once-female thing pulls, reaching out for the girls. 

Tanya is squaring up Meg with the machete and I get the rush of anxiety again — she’s too young, I tell myself, too excited, not scared enough — she’s going to get hurt, if not by the thing, by the blade in her hands. 

Even as I think it, I tell myself the little girl is older than she comes across, that I’m projecting something. Meg isn’t afraid because she is ignorant; the way her eyes flick over _me_ tells me that much. 

It’s evidenced further when the girl advances on the remaining creature blade-first, her steps small but confident, her balance secure. This creature is a known quantity, I am not. For Tanya, it’s the other way around. 

It takes Meg three strikes to take the creature down, but they’re better strikes than Tanya’s: firm chops longways that simply lack the arm strength to get through the creature’s skull easily. Well-grouped, the blows do nothing until they do. The creature stills and crumples backward into the chain link, a pile of arms and legs and grey flesh supported only by the metal loop around her. 

Meg’s expression contains no exhilaration, only icy finality. 

Hannibal lets loose the pole and the thing collapses into the dirt. He straightens, seemingly satisfied. Meg and Tanya exchange a high-five and make their way back to the gate, victorious.

I watch as he nods congratulations to them and re-chains the gate behind them. Tanya entertains Meg’s excited recapping of her kill with crossed arms, encouraging her to put the machete away before someone gets hurt. Hannibal lowers himself into the folding chair next to mine. 

There’s not much to discuss, which works out because he is suddenly ill equipped for discussion. “Does it need to be the head?” I ask.

He nods, taps his temple. _The brain_. 

“Does it need to be a blade? —Will a gun work?”

He nods. 

“This... this is a lot. This changes everything.”

Hannibal digs into his coat pocket and retrieves the notepad, writing briefly before showing me the message. _When you look at them, what do you see?_

“Hunger,” I tell him, feeling tired. “No pain, no fear, no thoughts. Just hunger.”

He watches me and then writes again. Prepared for more insight, I’m selfishly bewildered when he rips the completed page off and passes the note to Tanya instead of me. 

Tanya jumps to take the paper, brushing loosened stands of blonde behind her ear as she reads his font-precise, flowing script. She looks disappointed in what she reads.

She frowns at me. “Okay. Uh, Meg, let’s tell Will how to kill the creepers. D’you want to tell him?”

“‘Creepers’?” I say critically.

Meg’s still not sure about speaking to me directly, but she does like talking about the monsters. Hannibal crosses his legs elegantly, leaning back to listen along like an auditing instructor. 

“They’re really slow but they grab you and bite,” the kid explains, “and they keep going if you don’t get their head, so you gotta get their head. But we ran over one in the truck yesterday, so that worked too.”

“They eat you if they can,” Tanya adds, somewhat more comprehensively, “but if they just bite you —“

“You’re _dead_ ,” Meg sing-songs. 

Tanya looks tired, now, too. “—you’re as good as dead. Just one bite, you’re infected — it gets bad fast, just two or three days, and then...”

“You turn into that,” I finish the thought, inclining my jaw toward the yard. Tanya nods. “Is it blood-borne?” I ask, looking from Tanya to Hannibal. 

“Uh, it better not be, seeing how much of it I’ve gotten on myself so far,” Tanya grumbles. “Uh, —no. Well, yes if it’s someone alive who is infected. Not from the creatures. It’s —“ she looks at Hannibal, as if for guidance. “It’s in their saliva? Is that what you said, Han?”

 _Han._ Again with the unsettling nicknames. If Hannibal is bothered by it — and he _has_ to be — it doesn’t show. He nods affirmative. 

Tanya continues, “Big Barry got snapped at once, and it didn’t break the skin, and he was fine. So, I guess it’s just if the saliva gets in you. Then it’s bad times.”

“Who’s Big Barry?” I ask. 

Tanya makes a face as though she regrets mentioning him. 

“An asshole,” Meg answers definitively. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Tanya shakes her head. “Big Barry’s dead. Forget it. It’s freezing out here, let’s go inside. Lunch should be about ready.”

I look out at the crumpled remains of the not-quite-dead for a while in silence. When the door’s open and the twin poles are angled to fix the paddock gate shut, Hannibal collects me into his arms again. 

  
  



	6. Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A nice family meal. A lot of lies.

Tanya, who lingers outside to fill up the generator on the patio, lets us know that Grandma Sue is getting the stew warmed up. I suppress a little shudder even as Hannibal whisks me back into the warmth of the stairwell. 

I am deposited in the same dining room I’d glimpsed fleetingly last night. Though Hannibal has taken the time to hang paintings in here, too, he hasn’t invested enough to paint or switch out the average-looking family furniture owned by whoever lived here last. Alone, I am left to contemplate three very Italian-looking classics I couldn’t name to save my life: a portrait, a Madonna and child, and a pastoral Dionysian orgy. Nothing I recall having to memorize back in Art History class. 

All I know is that they are meaningful — some of his favorite looted pieces. Of this, I am _absolutely_ certain. 

They’re in his dining room, after all. 

My four new roommates join me promptly with the spread, and if I didn’t know better I would question how apocalyptic our situation really was. There’s a fresh homemade loaf of bread, piping hot, a bowl of salad, also fresh, with chopped walnuts — dressing prepared at the table, of course. There is another bowl with some type of potato concoction. The combined aroma evokes a hearty countryside family gathering, and my appetite blindsides me. When Sue brings out the stew in a large ceramic dish, I half-grimace but swallow my discomfort. 

The stew, too, smells excellent.

I wonder who it was. 

Meg sits down with a package of Swiss Cake Rolls in one hand, clearly not intent on sharing. She is still regaling her victory in the yard to Grandma Sue. I’m not imagining the annoyed look on Hannibal’s face as he glances at the packaged treat she’s holding. There is a limit to his patience, somewhere; if the casual nicknames haven’t set him off, yet, maybe the food will. 

He likes the little girl, that’s obvious enough. I’m mostly-living proof that if Hannibal likes you, he can excuse bad behavior to a point. If only liking people kept him from killing them. 

He waits until everyone is sitting and then serves each of us in turn, counter-clockwise, smiling. I can’t tell how genuinely, but I sense a barrier of insincerity within his cheer. The food is good but isn’t quite his usual caliber, even as he plates things carefully and adds a touch of garnish to each plate. There’s something off. 

Maybe the others are aware of it, too. The women look pleased about lunch, but a little uncomfortable — still adjusting to a paradigm shift, perhaps, getting used to this odd life of pristine social mores and full bellies. Shame that foie gras must be impossible to make now, even the Lecter special. If so, they’d really be in for a treat. 

“Is fresh food hard to come by?” I ask, already knowing the answer. 

“You have no idea,” Sue barks, happy to chat. “When it’s squirrel stew getting you excited for lunch —“ she looks at Hannibal and concedes, “—it’s excellent though, baby. When it’s squirrel, you know the situation is bad.”

“I wonder what else you can eat,” I say lightly. 

No reaction, not even from Hannibal, who is spooning stew into Meg’s bowl. He takes the cake package out of her hand gently and sets it aside. _This is dessert, sweetheart,_ the gesture says. _Not until after you finish your Soylent Green._

“We have a plan. Well, it’s Hannibal’s plan,” Tanya explains to me. “Livestock. That’s where the others are, actually, scouting out farms up into Shenandoah Valley. There’s fewer creepie crawlies up in the mountains, so — we figure someone might have been able to hold on to their chickens and pigs and cows.” 

“And if you find them?” I ask. “What next?”

She’s too distracted to answer right away. Hannibal is lovingly spooning steaming broth into the bowl in front of her, his bare forearms turning elegantly in Tanya’s immediate line of vision. The girl has it bad. “What? Oh. Uh, we bring them here, or we go to them. Then ... we get eggs and bacon and milk, I guess. Hannibal has this whole thing — milk being the uh, fulcrum — fulcrum? For mankind’s odds of survival.” 

Hannibal takes a seat at the end of the table to my right, smiling with approval at Tanya’s knack for retention. I pick up my spoon and start in on the stew like everyone else, grateful that I can at least eat unassisted today — not that my hand isn’t shaking like an octogenarian’s as I guide the spoon up and down. 

“How’d he get so smart?” Tanya asks me chummily, picking up her own spoon with a smile thrown in Hannibal’s direction. 

I smile, too, at least on the left side. “Hannibal defies categorization,” I answer, not really answering. “Is it okay to talk about the — uh, creepie crawlies — at the table? Or is that a new taboo I’ll have to get used to?”

The women shrug, indifferent. I’m just eager to move the topic away from Hannibal. “Is creepy crawly the scientific name?” I add. 

Sue answers, “The news called them ‘creatures’ at first, then just _th_ _ _e_ Dead _ toward the end. Barry’s guys called them _Walkers_. Hannibal, he likes, uh— what was it, Tanya?” 

“ _Revenants_.” 

“I like Creepers,” Meg supplies. “Because they creep around.” 

My arm aches from simply lifting the spoon. Fortunately, I’ve already eaten as much as my stomach can handle, what feels like three mouthfuls. I put the spoon down and lean back. “Are there other people out there? Living people? How would we know? Is there any means of communication that still exists?” 

Something I’ve said touches a nerve. Grandma Sue looks pessimistically down into her bowl. After a moment of silence she sighs heavily and speaks, her voice rough. “Hang ‘em all. The people left out there — every one of them — they’re worse than the creepers. The creepers don’t know the difference between right and wrong. They hardly have brains. You can only hate a creature so much.” 

I can relate. I keep myself from looking toward Hannibal’s seat. Of course, he knows the difference between right and wrong. 

Sue swallows thickly and continues. “I hesitate to repeat it in front of the girl, but it bears saying. Them monsters killed my son, but I don’t hate them. I hate the men that stole his truck and left him to make it back to the house on foot, unarmed. Given a choice of bedfellow, I’d choose the dead over the living every time.” 

“Ugliness is found in the faces of the crowd,” I recite absently.

When I do look at Hannibal, he is writing with one hand, using his fork with the other. The corner of his mouth is turned up contentedly. 

“I’m sorry,” I say to Sue. “For your loss.” 

They are the right words to say, the polite words. I can see her son in my mind’s eye, broad-shouldered, thick hair like her, my age at least. I can see him getting assaulted, pulled out of the car by his hair and his coat and thrown into the street. I can see him running in the road, panting toward home, with rotten teeth snapping at his heels. One bad landing on an ankle —

I can feel his terror. I can feel her mourning for him. 

I don’t feel pity. That’s something else.

I take a sip of water from the glass in front of me. 

There is an awkward silence and it feels like my fault. Not unused to awkward silences, I find myself breaking it after only a few seconds only to replace it with something worse. 

“So — is it too late? Is there a point? Has the world already ended?” 

I look around the table, anxious to find a hint of optimism on the face of someone who isn’t a child or a serial killer. “The gasoline reserves for your generator won’t last forever. Who knows if there’s agriculture to support however many people that are left — we could be looking at resource wars, enormous setbacks in medicine, science —“ 

Tanya looks particularly pained. She starts tearing her bread into chunks, not really looking at it.

I continue, “Defend what’s yours and maybe survive long enough to die from natural causes? Is that the size of it? We—“ 

Coming to some sort of decision, Tanya meets my eyes squarely from her spot across the table. She drops the bread and narrows her eyes, interrupting. “Sorry if this question is a little direct and heavy, Will, but — are you a good man?” 

There it is again, the chill, the invisible edge — the door to the inverted world. Here, somewhere in the room beyond the five of us and the dramatic paintings on the wall, it is lingering just out of sight. _Why?_ Why did her question take me closer to it? 

I sigh.

“Good is relative,” I answer with a shrug. “I’ve been called a good man. Would I call myself one? No. Not exactly.” 

I look over at Hannibal, who is chewing with a smile — undoubtedly a genuine one. 

“If you’re worried about me, Tanya, don’t be. I promise you I am at least as good a man as Hannibal is.” 

Tanya processes what I’ve said and nods, just once, an understanding. I detect no hostility this time. 

“I don’t know,” Sue drawls playfully, smiling down the table. “Those are big shoes to fill, Will. Hey, you weren’t a doctor or a chef or something, too, by any chance? Then we’d _really_ be set.” 

“Mmn. Federal contractor,” I grunt. 

Hannibal tears off a sheet of paper and passes it to Tanya before digging happily back in to his salad. Tanya reads the note in full before speaking. “Hannibal says... ‘This is not the time to be pessimistic... planning and perseverance are critical... there is nothing that can not be learned and applied to improve our odds for a comfortable life... or... for anyone willing to engage in a new and ...more civil society.’” 

Tanya looks up at me as she reads, “‘...Will is not a _good_ man, he is a _great_ one.” She hesitates, then frowns at me as she finishes, “...and it is important that he finish his plate entirely, as he has a lot of weight to gain back.’” 

I glare at Hannibal. 

“He can have the rest of mine,” Meg calls out from the end of the table, “Can I eat my cake roll now?” 

—

I need to talk to Hannibal as soon as possible. Alone. 

He spends the last twenty minutes of the lunch hour writing longhand at the table, but he doesn’t contribute much to the discussion by way of notes. Consequently, the conversation starts to run a bit low-brow, bouncing from the qualities of Sue’s two bastard ex-husbands, (now both deceased, bless their hearts,) to Meg’s rambling recount of the premise of a TV show she liked (which will never return to the air.) It is all peppered with noncommittal sounds of acknowledgement from Tanya, who is about as interested as I am. 

I’ve only been awake a few hours, but I’m exhausted, and even if I weren’t, I’m far past my short threshold for polite conversation. I simply watch Hannibal chew and write while I sourly force the last of my potatoes down my throat. I feel sick — I may be a candidate ingredient for a decent foie gras if I have to eat anything else this week. 

I try asking Hannibal for a few minutes to talk as the women start clearing the dishes, but he simply shakes his head no and sorts through the three or four pages of notebook paper he’s finished. They look like lists, but his handwriting is particularly hard to read upside-down and across the table. Without providing an explanation, Hannibal disappears abruptly across to the kitchen, passing off his notes to Tanya as he leaves. 

For a minute I think I’m going to be stranded in the dining room alone with the artwork, but Sue returns with a sweet smile pushing a hospital-grade wheelchair — where it’s been until now, I can’t say. 

It’s an improvement over being carried around like a stuffed animal. I’m glad to have it, like I am being given back some agency; but when Sue scoots me awkwardly into the wheelchair I find my arms are nothing against the weight of the wheels. 

I slump in place again, surly. Sue wheels me out to the hall. 

Tanya is paging through Hannibal’s notes there, studying them carefully. Sue gives me a wink and slips off down the hall, shaking a little cardboard box over her shoulder. I watch Tanya with my neck craned up, feeling overfed, irritated and ignored. 

I can’t see into the kitchen. Asking Tanya to _book me an appointment_ with the Good Doctor will only irritate both of them. Hardly noticing me, Tanya leans against the wall and reads to-do lists off the notes in her hands, loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear. 

“Me, Tanya: generator duty; unload the truck; pull cables into the garage; reset the ...paddock trap. Uh, Hannibal?“ She twists her hair over her shoulder, an anxious tick, and disappears into the kitchen for a follow-up question. I suppose she is allowed follow-up questions. When she comes back she looks irritated.

“Sue: you’re getting dishes; watering the garden; my’s — my’s in —“ Tanya stumbles, narrowing her eyes at the list. “...My’s in place?”

“ _Mise en place_ ,” I enunciate from my seat. “It means ‘to get ingredients ready’.” It feels good to show her up, petty as it is.

“Oh.” Tanya throws me an uncomfortable frown, then notices Sue isn’t here. “Where’s the old bat, anyway?”

“Smoking,” I report. 

Tanya blinks and nods. “I guess we’ll wait.” 

“Did you know Sue before? Before the, uh. This.” I half-grimace. 

She looks away. “No, no, she was at the — uh. The camp, when I got there— we just kind of got thrown together.” 

“What was this camp? Was it like a —”

Tanya cuts me off, her reply immediate and non-negotiable. Her voice deepens by a full measure. “I don’t want to talk about it, actually.” She pulls on her shirt collar mindlessly. 

I nod, leaving it, and there’s that awkward silence again. In a moment, I go back to the safer topic of the list in her hands. “Seems like everybody’s got chores to do, here. Does he give you an allowance?” 

She is not very receptive to sarcasm, or mention of the camp was enough to throw her off. Tanya shakes the papers at me, her tone just a note shy of argumentative. “Hey, if this is the cost of living here, none of us are complaining. There’s fuck— freaking hot water here. I will die on that hill. I went like five months without hot water.” 

She dismisses me with a dirty look, then raises her voice. “Uh — Meg, sweetie, you’re supposed to help me in the garage, and then it just says homework. Did he give you homework?” 

As called, Meg emerges from the dining room, chocolate on her face. The girl scrunches her nose, looking down the hall. “I guess,” she shrugs, disinterested. “Can I watch a movie first? I got a movie while we were out on our _mission_.” 

Tanya sighs. A glimmer of irritation crosses her face, and then she does the thing that Molly does with Walter, which I can never quite pull off — she grins it away. I’ve never been good at that, grinning, and with half a functioning face I’m even worse now. 

“Movies are just gonna be for special occasions, baby, because there’s not that much electricity to spare, and we need the lights and the kitchen and stuff.” 

Clearly put out, Meg glowers in reply and stalks in the direction of the living room. Tanya watches her from the corner of her eye, waiting until we hear the door to the garage slam. 

“I’m told it only gets worse,” I tell her. “Uh, difficult age. Eleven? Twelve?” Eight or nine by her behavior, but not her size. 

“Twelve. Yeah, I don’t really know anything about kids,” Tanya mumbles. “Did you have — sorry, uh — never mind.” 

“Did I have kids?” I lean back. “Yeah. Somewhere out there, still, I hope. Not that I claim to know anything about kids either. Meg, she did good with the —” I carefully elect to use Hannibal’s word, “ _Revenant_ outside. She’s not afraid of them.”

“Girl has balls of steel.” 

I chuckle, glad at last to be trading niceties. My abs ache from the tension and I immediately resolve to never laugh again. 

Down the hall, Sue reappears, joining us with a crisp cloud of ash scented air about her. “Ready for afternoon chores?” She croaks. “What am I doing?” 

“Dishes, garden — _mise en place_ — and keep an eye on Will,” Tanya reads. 

Honestly, I feel a little emasculated by the last one, my lack of mobility notwithstanding. Before I can levy a comment, Tanya turns to look down at me with a frown. 

“Will, you have chores, too.” 

I’m not expecting that. “I do?” 

“Well, it just says ‘rest’ and ‘read notes if possible.’ Better than hauling boxes and resetting the paddock trap, you lucky son of a bitch.”

“Is that dangerous? Resetting the paddock trap?”

“Uh, not too much. Just better to do it in daylight. There’s the second gate across the paddock, you go out and set up the door on a spring, it closes when one or a couple of them shuffle through. You’re just open to the woods for a few minutes. It’s no where near as dangerous as a supply run.” 

“And then when you have some, you just take turns killing them?” 

“Yeah. _Safely_ ,” Tanya asserts. “For practice. Anyway, it’s not a big deal. Hannibal will help me.” She sniffs, demure. “Just enjoy loafing while you can. Sue, can you put him in bed and I’ll find out what he’s supposed to read? We’re burning daylight.” 

Sue obediently grabs the handles of my chair, but I clutch the wheel with my left hand — for all the good it might do. “I — look, I don’t have to go in the back room in order to rest and read, do I? And — I kind of have to talk to Hannibal, so I should probably just sit in the living room. Easier for you to watch me, right?” I’m not able to keep the bitterness from my voice at the end. 

The women frown at each other, then Tanya shrugs. I slump a little in my seat, relieved, and Sue rolls me down the hall. 

She’s fluffing pillows on the sofa and I’m looking away, embarrassed, when I spot Hannibal emerging from the kitchen back into the hall. I almost raise my voice to catch him, but I stop at the last second: he’s talking — or listening — to Tanya, nodding at intervals. 

I can’t hear Tanya this far away. I see her fringe shake as she asserts something, and after a second I see Hannibal put a gentle hand on her shoulder, comforting her. 

Except it’s not on her shoulder, not quite — it’s closer to her neck. 

There’s that edge again. I felt it when he put his hand on me, there, too. And when I _became_. My heart pumps aggressively inside my ribs; I lean forward as far as my abs can allow and see just a sliver of Tanya’s face in profile, and Hannibal’s other hand brushing strands of hair behind her ear.

The edge isn’t just there anymore. I am on it. Past it.

The world flickers, upside-down, right-side-up. Colored. Inverted colors. Whatever my heart is pumping, it isn’t just blood. 

“You should be comfy here,” Sue imposes, pulling my chair forward and interrupting my line of sight. 

Teetering, I correct back to the side of the normal. No black pool, no razor edge, but my blood still feels hot. I can’t see the two of them anymore. 

I whirl around to Sue, about to demand that she put me back. I open my mouth, but realize that “So I can snoop better” is not a great reason to ask for such a thing. 

Sue puts a stocky arm under mine and levers me over to the couch with some effort. My heart’s still racing. I’m nearly panting. 

I am _upset,_ and not just a little. _Why?_

— because it bothered me seeing Hannibal touch her like that. It still bothers me.

_Why?_

_Because I am concerned for her well-being,_ I lie to myself. I reject it quickly. 

_Because he’s lying, even without words he is lying. Lying to her like he lied to me and I am upset because Hannibal is clearly using her for — amusement — an experiment — some game that —_

No. That’s not working, either. 

I take a few deep breaths and try to let the frustration out. No lies, not to myself, not any more. It’s time to face an uncomfortable truth. 

I’m upset because I’m jealous. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Will is not interested in nor versed in fine art, but he might have recognized something about the paintings if he was feeling a little better.
> 
> The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., was founded by Andrew William Mellon, an American tycoon in the ranks of Rockefeller and Ford. Through his own collections and from those such as Samuel H. Kress, the National Gallery owns several original paintings by Sandro Botticelli. 
> 
> Or should I say owned? —docawk


	7. The Other Fall

Sue tucks me in more thoroughly than strictly necessary and disappears down the hall. I’m flustered, angry — _jealous_ , I force myself to name it — and not feeling much like resting. I start to wonder about the notes I’m meant to read, “if possible”, though I doubt they’ll tell me exactly where Hannibal found these women and what he’s up to with Tanya. 

I consider my options, gazing through the wide span of windows to the scenic view past the deck. Tanya and I lack chemistry; she’s not going to talk to me as a friend, and making friends is going to be an uphill battle. I may be able to goad her into revealing something, but it will have consequences. 

Sue is a better bet. She’s friendlier despite her gruffness, likelier to confide —and she’s lost a son; I can connect to her in that way. It’s hard to gauge Sue’s relationship with Tanya, whether it’s more friendly or convenient. They have shared history at this camp, but little in common. Sue might be willing to part with the information I want. 

The thinking calms me down, and wrapped warmly and stomach full to bursting I end up nearly asleep by the time the steps approach me from the hall. The invisible edge buzzes slightly at the back of my mind; the steps are soft and quiet, but they are also long, heavy, loud, with a sharp clop like cloven bone on wood. My eyes snap open.

Hannibal flashes a brief, polite grin at me from the entrance to the hall, pausing for me to acknowledge him before approaching. He carries a fat, black file folder in one hand. 

“Hey,” I say groggily, struggling slightly to sit further up. “I — need to talk to you. But maybe not here.” I try and partially fail to keep the tremor out of my voice. 

He nods tiredly, expecting it and agreeing, but he taps his watch. 

“You’re — too _busy_ for me?” 

Apparently, he is. Hannibal raises his eyebrows slightly and tilts his head, looking back to the hall pointedly. _I’m sorry, Will,_ my imagination supplies, _you know I cherish every one of our conversations, but at this moment circumstance demands a rain check._

“When?” I ask, irritated. 

Hannibal twists his head in a subtle way I interpret as _I can’t tell you_ — it’s apologetic, maybe even honestly apologetic, but firm. I narrow my eyes at him, about to express a word or two. 

Sue’s voice from the kitchen beats me to it, and to better effect.

“ _Hannie_ _?_ ” 

I pause, confirming I’ve just heard what I _think_ I just heard. Across the room, Hannibal’s face relaxes to a blank mask that slaps of murderous intent. 

The older woman’s crow continues from the direction of the kitchen. “Can you remind me — for the carrots — Is _batonnet_ the squarer cut or the skinnier cut? Can I do them all square?” 

Hannibal’s fingers twitch, and maybe a muscle under his left eye. A shocking if not fleeting lack of restraint. 

“...They taste the same either way, so I’m not sure if it’s important. We’ve done so many that I’m—”

“ _You little brat!_ ”

The interior door off the living room opens suddenly and Meg darts through it, blowing past Hannibal and into hall behind him. Tanya comes several feet after her, also running, her teeth bared. “It is not funny,” she growls as she takes pursuit. “You could have electrocuted me, you little —“ 

It's almost funny, I think. Hannibal is starring in his own version of _The Brady Bunch._ But knowing someone may be about to get killed takes a lot of the punch out of it.

Alone with him again, I narrow my eyes at Hannibal. He closes his eyes, either retreating to the serene safety of his mind palace or just taking a breather. 

“I get it, I think,” I mutter quietly when he returns to me a few moments later. “I’m sorry I’m a little needy at the moment, but suddenly I get the impression that you might need to talk to me just as much as I need to talk to you.” Talk as a figure of speech. “Tonight?” 

Nodding once, Hannibal steps forward to place the thick folder in his hand next to me on the coffee table. His hand lingers on it for a moment, he pats it, then he straightens and walks away. 

—-

The file is an inch and a half thick, an assortment of paper types, all of them filled with his perfect script — ruler-straight lines even on unruled pages. A lot of it looks like medical jargon, but there are a number of journal entries. Tuning out the sounds of raised voices down the hall, I begin to read the first entry. 

11 February 2017  
 _St Helens Medical Center  
_ Elizabeth City, NC

I stop reading a moment to take myself back to North Carolina. The diary begins a little more than a week after we crossed the state line. It was a long drive south after Dollarhyde hijacked the transport van, hours with just the two of us in the stolen cruiser. We hadn’t spoken much, but I can still feel every minute in my bones. It's strange to think I'm in Virginia now. I don't feel like I ever left that house on the cliff. I keep reading. 

_I make February the 3rd the date the world fell to disorder, though other records may contest it if the index case is ever discovered. Based on virus life cycle, it could have begun 28 January or earlier._ _I was inconveniently without access to traditional news media for some time prior to 2 February and, like most, had other business at the forefront of my mind as preliminary news reports began to emerge._

_Mid-morning on the 3rd I arrived here at St Helens to admit myself and my companion, Will Graham, as we had both sustained grievous injuries that I myself could not adequately tend alone._ _It was evident before the day was out that something was happening on at least a national scale._

_It is standard for hospitals to track and report certain types of injury to local law enforcement, and given the nature of our wounds I spent the day expecting visitors of this type. As the day wore on and the authorities failed to make time for us, I queried the administrator to see if police could be summoned to take a statement._

_I was advised that emergency services were overwhelmed and prioritizing. It was not until learning this late on the 3rd that I began to take an interest in national and global news reports._

I stop to reread the words several times over. The beginning of that day — it’s a blur, a series of snapshots, grey. A dream, with only the parts I shared with Hannibal still echoing clearly around the depths of my mind. I don’t remember my last conversation with Jack that morning, nor the small talk in the transport. I remember watching him in the van, his eyes locked with mine over the bite mask. That, and the rest of that day, is impossible to forget. And then -- nothing. 

So Hannibal brought us to the hospital. Pragmatic. Those intake records made it a risky game, but not until the BAU could track the stolen police cruiser out of state.

_As soon as the end of the following day this hospital was inundated with those either infected or mauled. With hospital staff increasingly distracted by what was now a global phenomenon I moved myself into to Will’s room and assumed primary care. The nurses did not interfere. By the 4th they ceased coming entirely._

_My ventures in to the halls for supplies revealed an eerie quietness in the emergency ward. I was gifted there my first encounter with a revenant, formerly a fellow patient. Having seen some news reports from the room, I dispatched it quickly and brought it back to examine it. My illustrations attached._

The images are startling and grotesquely lifelike — unlike the creatures I'd seen outside, the revenant pictured is a fresh corpse, mangled by teeth marks and torn flesh. Hannibal has rendered the blood in solid black ink overlaying the pencil. 

Mixed in with the incredibly detailed drawings of the dead, there are other sketches: the view of the hospital courtyard from the window, a crowd of ragged faces grouped outside the hospital's entrance. Smoke billows from a distant building. 

There is also a drawing of me, unconscious in the gurney, stark bandages from my face to my chest. _Will Graham, 7/2/17,_ the inscription reads. 

_I’ve elected to keep a diary as it is now clear that this is not a passing misfortune; internet services are suspended, news stations in London and New York send only fleeting, frightened bulletins, and it is clear that many millions are now dead._

_Perhaps we will join them soon._ _In the interim, I am fortunate that my injuries are easily treated and Will is fortunate to have a physician for a friend. His current condition necessitates remaining here in to the foreseeable future, so I will proceed to protect our interests to the best of my ability._

The next entry is four days later. 

_15 February 2017_

_The backup generators keeping this hospital alive are soon to give out. I have plans in place, both short- and long-term, and have already blockaded several parts of the hospital that are overwhelmed. I am prioritizing clearing out the stairwell and the facilities room on the roof in order to maintain the generators._

_I also hope to create a path to a laboratory on the second floor for research purposes, but currently there are seventy or eighty revenants on that floor that must be exterminated._

_The food supply has dwindled considerably. The hospital cafeteria’s walk-in-freezer began reasonably well stocked with staples, albeit low-quality, and I have humbly made do with what is available until now. Soon an expedition outside the hospital will be necessary._

_Fascinating how disaster illuminates that which we hold most dear. My kingdom for an orange. Fruit and livestock are now the earth’s most treasured commodity, though should I encounter a cow I doubt that a hospital would make for an adequate home for it._

_15 February (later)_

_I believe that men largely make their own fortune, but in a chaotic universe no one is entirely immune from the random strike of serendipity. While clearing revenants downstairs this afternoon, I encountered a group of survivors who managed to push their way in to the hospital pharmacy on the first floor._

_The three of them were indisposed to diplomacy where opioids were concerned, but it worked out amicably. I gave them some medication and in exchange I received information on the world outside, their assistance in several experiments I have been wanting to perform, and additional rations to last us two or three weeks or longer -- if refrigeration holds._

"I bet you did," I snort humorlessly. 

The next pages are all medical jargon that I can only skim. One page is called “Rudimentary Observations on Revenant Characteristics”, and compared to the other pages it’s simple enough to follow:

  1. _The revenants seek out living flesh. 2-3 minutes without active blood flow makes for an unappetizing target for them. They are attracted to movement and sound, but may have limited olfactory sensory as well._
  2. _Revenant virus is transmitted through the saliva of the vector to the victim’s blood stream. Incubation 2-3 hours, symptoms of fever after 3-4 hours, mortality at roughly 48 hours._
  3. _The virus can be transmitted through open wounds. Revenant blood, which is coagulated, does not contain the live virus._
  4. _Revenants do not require any circulatory, pulmonary or digestive function. They are able to move only as bone and muscle elasticity allow. They hunger regardless of functioning digestive organs._
  5. _Inadequate testing facilities preclude a scientific explanation for the overall phenomenon._
  6. _There is evidently limited brain activity. Propose to get one into an MRI if possible for further study._



I make another attempt on the pages of handwritten medical reports, but my comprehension strays quickly. I return to the first diary entries, smoothing my hand over the small lines of his handwriting. 

He took me to the hospital. He took me and he _stayed_. And when things went to shit, he kept me safe. The breadth of that undertaking isn’t lost on me. I wasn’t the only one with holes in my body. 

I imagine our injuries reversed — would I have staved off a monster insurgence over his unconscious body? 

_Yeah_ , I think tiredly. 

For ten months — I wince at the thought — Jack would kill him in an instant if I brought them together. I’d have to drag Hannibal with me as I looked for Molly and Walter, knowing what disaster would unfold if he ever woke up. My two lives converging. And Walter, with all the self-assuredness of a young man with a mother to protect, would insist that I kill Hannibal in his sleep — or do it himself. 

But I would try. Yeah, I’d have watched out for him, too.

It is useless to dwell on what-ifs. My relationship with Hannibal is already full of shattered potentials. I look out at the deck and reframe myself to the world as it is.

_My name is Will Graham, I’m in some house in Charlottesville, Virginia_ , _and it’s_ — well, some time in the afternoon, anyway.

My grounding exercise isn’t wasted. As I’m glancing around looking for a clock that isn’t flashing “12:00” at me, Sue shuffles back into the room with a fake grin and a pitcher of water. 

“How are we doing?” She barks, not unkindly. 

“You got to the “Check on Will” box on your to-do list,” I observe, trying to smile back some of the bitterness. Maybe it works. “Is that water for me? I’m parched.”

“It is.” She fetches a glass with a plastic straw and sets me up with the cup tucked against my chest. She glances at the folder in my lap as she does. 

“I couldn’t make head nor tails of all that,” she sighs, waving it off. “Bree did. She’s a nurse. I just said ‘Give me the cliff notes.’ Whack them in the head? Got it.”

I keep the smile up. I’m mildly surprised to learn the diary entry was passed around. I wonder if anyone thought to ask Hannibal what we were doing at the hospital. I guess all things considered it’s not the most interesting thing that happened that day. 

“I haven’t met Bree,” I point out, changing the subject. Sue settles herself down on the coffee table. There doesn’t seem to be anybody else in earshot, so I venture a bit. “She also from the camp?”

“Yes.” Sue nods.

She doesn’t expound. Nobody wants to talk about camp. _That’s the way in._

“I can tell it’s sensitive — talking about that place. I don’t mean to aggravate a fresh wound for anybody. I’m sorry if I have.”

Sue laughs a little, not happily. “Brother, all we got are fresh wounds. But you’re right, I don’t think anyone wants to talk about it, relive it. We didn’t think a better life like this was even possible. The guys had guns and they had food and they killed all the Dead that came around. We just thought — 'Ah, the world’s over. We’re fucked. We’re just lucky if we don’t die.' 

“Then when Tonto showed up and it all — it was scary, leaving that place, because we knew what to expect there. But as soon as we got here it was like breathing fresh air. Or coming home. And there’s hope again. We need the camp to just be a bad chapter in a book we put away.”

I nod, then hesitate.

“Sue... did Hannibal kill someone there?”

Sue hardly blinks, but she does go still, her eyes and frown lines firm. 

“...More than one person?” I press. 

She doesn't reply quickly.

“You say that like you already know,” she hedges. 

“I — know Hannibal.”

That sits uneasily with her for a moment. I can almost see the wall going up between us. Sue tilts her chin up slightly. “What if he did?” She challenges me. “Gonna call the cops?”

“No cops to call,” I shrug. “I can’t wipe my own ass, I don’t think I can do anything. But if you don’t want to tell me, I can guess what happened. Shall I guess?”

She’s shaking her head. “Old world’s dead, Will. There ain’t laws now."

"I realize that."

"And if I made them, Hannibal wouldn’t have broken none of ‘em.”

She raises an eyebrow at me, inviting a challenge. She doesn't need to. 

“They deserved to die,” I state flatly. It’s not a guess. “They were —“

I bare my teeth, as if biting out the word. “— inhuman. Worse bedfellows than the dead.”

Sue nods slowly, sets her jaw. “They were. It sounds like you read me just fine. So what does it matter? Don’t believe it?”

“Oh, no, I believe it.” I pause. “Who knows? I might have killed them myself. If I were there. And Hannibal was there.”

“Then what’s your problem, Will?” She snaps. "Are you not getting what a fucked-up world we're in right now?" 

"The world's been fucked up longer than you think it has. No -- no, I get it. I just need to understand what kind of leverage he has, that's all." 

Sue stills, frowning deeply. "...What?" 

I look her in the eye. “Which one of you killed _with_ him?”

Her face twitches. 

“Tanya?” Confirmed at a glance. “...You too, Sue?”

Sue sets her lips together tightly, only now realizing she’s said more than she wanted.

“Literally nothing you could say can shock me,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice soft. “I’ve — taken a life before." _Three, at least_. "And like you said, there’s no law anymore.”

“I -- I would have.” Bitter, Sue spits out the words. The look on her face makes me wonder if it’s true; then the hard lines waver and she grimaces with emotion. “...The girl needed it.”

Meg — staring at me like an unknown quantity from the foot of my bed. Child of war.

“You killed to save her?” I offer. 

“No.” 

Sue closes her eyes, pained. Outside, in the distance, I hear a car alarm go off -- whooping and wailing in the quiet afternoon air. It doesn't occur to me yet that that's unusual. 

“We got him down to the ground, the last guy, but we let her do it," Sue says softly. "The girl needed to kill one of those bastards herself.”


	8. Attack

The razor’s edge precipice is something I share with Hannibal. That’s why it’s here, now, while I envision Meg taking the life she was owed. He was there. He watched, enraptured, as another of his pilgrims transformed. 

Sue, stone-faced, turns her head to the door across the room, the one that I know heads to the garage. “Something’s wrong,” she rumbles. 

The car alarm echoes ominously outside, a siren in a wasteland. Sue stands up just as Tanya and Hannibal converge into the room from the hall, hurried. 

“The bad alarm,” Tanya pants. “It’s them, they’re back.”

We all look at Hannibal.

“What do we do?” Sue croaks. 

Hannibal doesn’t appear troubled, but he does move fast. He picks up one of the bags I watched him take off last night — the slim case — and beckons the two women to follow him through the door. As it opens and closes behind the three of them, I glimpse another hall beyond it. 

I’m only alone for a moment. Meg slinks in from the hall suspiciously, eyeing the door, but she lingers on the other side of the room from me. A safe distance. 

I can picture the round-faced, gangly preteen coated in blood. It’s too easy. 

I shake my head. I’ll think about it later. “What does it mean? The alarm.”

She considers, decides it’s okay to tell me. “Three beeps means you’re friends. Alarm means warning. The creepers go toward it.” 

The girl pads over to the door cautiously, tilting her head to listen. Before she gets close, it springs open and Hannibal breezes back through it. 

He comes straight for me, dropping a small but incredibly heavy cardboard box into my lap without preamble. Before I can look at it or get a question out, he’s got one arm under my legs and another around my back, and I’m hoisted up in one smooth deadlift motion. The blanket covering me trails over his legs as he turns us and powers down the hall and into the stairwell. 

I’m busy finding a good place around his shoulders to cling to with frail and skinny arms; unsecured, the box falls to the floor with a metallic thud. Meg, on our heels, picks it up without missing a beat. “What’s happening?” She trills as Hannibal makes for the stairs going up. 

Not surprisingly, he doesn’t answer. I watch the stairwell shoot past beyond his left ear as he practically jogs up the flights, taking in as much as I can. The second floor landing looks like the first, with another door, and we head round the bannister to keep going up. 

The third story is smaller, just a door at the top of a cramped half flight of stairs. Hannibal, barely fitting under the low ceiling, leans me against the door to free one hand for the knob. Pressed tightly against him, I swallow hard and adjust my arms around his shoulders again. His breath is hot against my neck. The polarizing razor’s edge buzzes against our proximity. 

Something in me never wants to let go.

The attic room is different from the rest of the house: the angled ceiling, hitting low on either side, has exposed insulation. The wood is unpainted and old. It’s cold here, but clearly lived-in; there’s a large space heater at one end and a bed roll, a dresser and a small table and chair. Spartan, but comfortable— if you’re me. I doubt Hannibal sleeps here. 

Hannibal’s attention is fixed on the window at the eave to the left. Halfway to it, he sinks to a knee and drops my legs; I awkwardly release him, struggling to stay upright with both hands. He leaves me and moves forward at a crouch, stopping when he reaches the window and peeking over the edge. 

I realize the blaring car horn has stopped, the only sound remaining being my own heavy breathing. Hannibal beckons blindly with one hand, and though he might have meant it for Meg, I grit my teeth and start to crawl along the rough floorboards in his direction. 

It’s slow going. Feeling like a tortoise, I inelegantly eek along the floor, arms and legs fumbling and failing. It’s only about six feet, however, and I don’t exactly weigh what I used to. When I’m in range, Meg and Hannibal pull me upright. By leaning forward with my cheek on the sill, I share the clear view of the street with them. 

There are no signs of life on the street below to speak of — I only see two houses on the other side of the long stretch of residential road, large, each with two-car garages, dark on the inside. It tells me that this house is similar, though I can see that this building’s yard has the strategic benefit of a high iron fence flush with the sidewalk some forty feet across the yard. There’s razor wire looped through the top rings and chain link spanning the width of the driveway, certainly recent additions. 

There are two pickup trucks in the driveway and an even larger truck on the curb, a commercial truck with the words “Colonial Meats” printed cheerfully across the side. 

I don’t count the revenants. There are too many. 

In any case, I can’t see them clearly enough. A wobbling swarm of slowly-moving shapes, roughly human, concentrate around a car parked on the street outside one of the dark houses. They account for all the movement, and when I settle my breathing I can hear them, too: a chorus of labored groans. 

Meg is as close to me as she’s been so far, huddled in to get her own look from behind me. “Lots of them,” she whispers, not sounding particularly worried. 

Hannibal is moving again. Leaving the window’s edge, he pulls a long black polyester case from where it leaned against the unfinished wall nearby, unzipping it quickly and revealing its contents. 

“Can  _ I _ shoot that?” Meg whispers emphatically as Hannibal extracts the rifle. 

Acknowledging either of us for the first time, he shakes his head in answer to the question and passes the weapon — a hunting rifle, good for sniping by the size of the scope — to me stock-first. 

“What am I meant to be shooting at?” I ask, matter-of-fact. I can barely hold the thing, much less lift it, and aiming from the floor is going to be impossible — but, like the wheelchair, it does feel like tangible agency. 

The fact that Hannibal is handing me a weapon leaves a nice hot buzzing sensation at the back of my mind. It feels —  _ right _ . 

The rifle is nice - military-grade — hardly his kind of weapon. Not a bad one to keep in your attic, though. 

Hannibal cracks the window open and shoves the glass up, then props the rifle’s barrel on the sill for me; I can’t do it myself. Meg hands over the box of ammunition she is holding with a defeated sigh. 

Hannibal takes another look over the sill, first toward the swarming cluster of revenants, then up the street the other direction. He pats his pocket absently and I see his lip twitch. No notebook. 

“Just tell me,” I mutter through my teeth. 

He turns to me with his mask. There is something else there, leaking out around the eyes, a slight tremor of irritation in his upper lip, but he doesn’t open his mouth. He takes my right hand in his and flips it upward, checks that I’m watching, and begins to draw out letters on my palm with his finger. 

A-S-S-I-S-T

I wait for more, then look back to him when I realize there is no more. I’m about to protest when the car alarm goes off again, the wailing sound echoing ominously up and down the street below. The swarm around it jerks in response, swirling tighter toward the sound and the flashing lights. 

We look out. I can’t tell if someone is in the car or not, but otherwise they’d have to be close to hit the alarm — fifty or sixty feet at maximum. While I squint over the sill, I flip open the bolt action and fumble into the box for cartridges.

“Can I shoot just _one_?” Meg petitions again. 

“I’ll need your help,” I mutter to her. Glancing around the room, I tilt my chin in the direction of the table and chair across from the bed roll. I’ll have to angle myself to stay out of sight, but I can’t operate this rifle from the floor. “Stay low. Bring that chair over. Hannibal—“ 

I’m still not sure what I am supposed to be doing, what exactly  _ assisting _ entails. Hannibal is hawk-like beside me, unblinking eyes scanning the street. After a moment, he points to the house nearest to the blaring car. 

I squint. I can hardly make out the lumbering mass of writhing forms below, so I don’t know how I’m supposed to—

—wait, there is something. A red light, a pinprick, flashing three times from an upper floor of the house. There’s a lull, then another three flashes. 

Meg returns with the chair, keeping low. Hannibal extracts a slim cylinder from a pouch in the rifle case, what turns out to be a laser pointer. Still peering low over the sill, he clicks the pen three times in the direction of the signal. The red prick of light flashes back once in reply. 

Hannibal hands the pen off to Meg and moves back, setting the chair in place next to me. The two of them hoist me up until I’m half on the chair, half leaning against the unfinished wall beside the window. Not comfortable, but from here I have a clearer sight of the street and can angle myself against the stock. With the scope I can access every inch of the street — passively, I wonder where my glasses are. I last had them in Baltimore; ancient history now. 

“Still don’t know what I’m —“ I start, but as I pull my nose from the scope I find that Hannibal’s halfway to the attic door behind us. “Hannibal!” I hiss, but he does not stop or slow. He closes the door behind him, and — by the minute twisting of the knob — locks the two of us inside. 

“Assist,” I grumble at the weapon. All right. I lean into the stock and take another look at the street, swiveling from the house to the car. At least I have a means to see now. I sigh. “All right, have you ever shot a gun before?” 

Meg is back at my elbow immediately. “No.” 

“Just — do as I say and I promise I’ll show you.” It’s hardly the time for a shooting lesson and I am hardly an expert — but I also have no muscle strength. There is no way I can fire this thing alone. “If they’re friendly,” I mutter to the girl, “why do they keep setting off the alarm?”

“I guess they’re in trouble,” she shrugs. Cheated of her own weapon, she props the laser pointer against the sill next to me and looks down it like a scope. I sigh, scooting my body closer to the window until I find the spot that is least taxing on my back and arms. 

I’m still adjusting, moving from the scope to my own limited vision to check parts of the street, when I notice a familiar shape moving along the outside of the iron fence below us. 

Hannibal has a coat on now, still carrying the slim binoculars case over his chest. There is something long and narrow slung over his other shoulder. The length of the coat, the crossing of straps, and that god awful ponytail give him the look of a blurry colonial minuteman from afar. Frowning, I look back into the scope. 

He moves fast, staying low behind the abandoned cars lining the street on this side. The angle is wrong to get a good look at the house next to us, but Hannibal is using its expansive front yard to circumvent the thrall of revenants in the street. 

I have to move the scope constantly to keep up with him; my back aches. As I watch, Hannibal approaches a revenant from behind. He hardly slows, reaching behind his back and lifting at the slim case there. I realize it’s a sword. 

A sword. Hannibal with a sword. Somehow it fits. 

He unsheathes it and in the same smooth motion neatly slices the entire back end of the thing’s skull from the rest of its head. A flash of brown mottled hair separates from the rest of the creature and falls to the ground.

My lips part slightly. I keep the scope on him. He doesn’t slow. 

Two or three more creatures suffer blunt run-ins with his blade within the next six seconds; none of them have a chance to do more than half-turn to him before he swings. When I catch a glimpse of his face, he looks serene. 

“They’re not blinking at us anymore,” Meg whispers. I glance up from the scope to see her firing the laser pointer with frustration. Curious, I pull the rifle back toward the building. 

There’s no blip of red light from the window, and no shapes moving around inside. I check the front door and, finding nothing, look up to find Hannibal again — but I can’t. 

“Where’d he go?” I mutter to myself. 

“You have the gun,” Meg whispers back. 

It doesn’t help that the sun is setting, casting long shadows from every building, tree and vehicle in view. I squint at the street, unsure where to point the scope, when a revving engine draws my attention to the other side of the stretch of road. 

There’s a car spewing exhaust there, just at the limit of my field of view. It’s a big Suburban, dark windows, but there are shapes of at least two people inside. A man pops the door furthest from us and levels a rifle of his own in the direction of the swarm. 

He’s thirty-something, sandy hair, a dirty bandana around his neck. “Do you know a blonde guy? Is he one of yours?” I grunt to Meg. I feel more than see her look down the barrel at the car, her head coming close to mine. 

“No guys,” she answers. “Just you and Hannibal.” 

The blonde buttresses his rifle on his car door, taking aim at— something. I wince as I pop the safety off, delicately touching the trigger. Who is he? What is he doing? 

“Meg, I need you to go behind me and lean on my shoulder,” I murmur. 

“What?” 

“Stand behind me and put all your weight on this shoulder. Behind the stock.” 

She obeys. Two hands on my right shoulder, firm. “Okay. Don’t move,” I tell her. “Brace firmly.” 

I wince at the blonde man again, hesitating. I keep my crosshairs somewhere between his head and his arm. 

I’ve only just chosen his head and begun to put pressure on the trigger when the shooter reels back, a mist of red exploding from the back of his shoulder. There’s no sound of a report. He falls behind the other side of the SUV. 

“What the—“ 

The Suburban shifts into park and two of the doors open. Through the scope I watch the driver and another man circle the vehicle, tending to their friend. They’re armed — one has an assault rifle — but more concerned with their buddy than with shooting at anything. Fifteen feet away, a revenant previously fixed on the car alarm turns in their direction stiffly and begins its slow shuffle toward them. 

“Look,” Meg whispers. The pressure on my shoulder shifts as she points to the left. 

I grunt as I pull the barrel forty-five degrees, focusing again on the cluster of revenants circling the car like a feeding frenzy. A flutter of action in the front yard of the house draws my attention and I peer back into the scope. 

Hannibal has one arm around a tall dark-skinned woman, supporting her as she limps along next to him. With his other arm he swings his sword at the nearest creature, missing this time. They’re headed for the cover of the cars lining the street, but moving slow. 

“Okay, assisting,” I mutter. “Meg, hands back where you had them.” 

Hannibal swings again — he catches an arm, this time, but doesn’t slow the revenant’s steady advance on them. I square up the crosshairs with the back of the creature’s head and take a deep breath, hoping the rifle is calibrated well enough. 

“It’ll be loud,” I tell the girl. 

Breathe out. Steady squeeze. 

The rifle jerks hard against my shoulder. Meg lets out a little yelp, almost inaudible in the wake of the pop. I release the casing. 

I can’t tell if I hit the mark until I find it again - prone on the ground; guess so. Hannibal and the woman are already several yards away. 

“Good job,” I mutter for Meg’s benefit. 

Hannibal has a clear path across the street, so I take a second to check on the SUV gang. I swing the barrel around in time to catch one of the men blasting at two revenants that are advancing on their car. They’re occupied — I leave them to it. 

Back to Hannibal. I find him and the woman limping along with him, now on this side of the street — but they’ve caught the attention of several of their own revenants. I take a few steadying breaths and tell Meg to get ready again. She leans in to me. 

Slow breath, gentle squeeze. 

I keep better control this time; another one of the stalking creatures drops. Meg’s silent. 

I release the casing, already taking aim at the next one. Hannibal has about six feet on it, more concerned with outrunning this one than slicing it up. I set my sights on it, about to give Meg the head’s up, when the glass above us explodes into a shower of crystal shards that rain down directly onto the back of my head.

My instinct is to pull back, but I can’t move myself. “Get back,” I choke out at the girl. “They’re shooting at us. Get down.” 

“Get down, too!” Meg yells, already on the floor.

Another bullet snaps into the windowsill next to my head and I flinch as a large wood splinter flips out toward the yard. “Pull — pull me down!” I yelp. “Can’t move!” 

Meg springs up and buries both hands in the back of my sweater, throwing her weight backward. The chair tips back and we land in a pile on the floor. A full second later there’s a third report; a fresh bullet hole flashes twilight through the plywood and insulation right where I’ve just been sitting. 

I manage to hang on to the rifle, now inert and laying between my legs. We’re at a safe angle on the floor, but we can only watch breathlessly as two more shots pierce through the unfinished wall. 

We stare, waiting. After ten seconds, the car alarm falls silent. No more shots follow. 

“You’re squishing me,” the girl complains after a few beats. 

“I’m sorry,” I pant back at her. I flip the safety on the rifle. “Try and push me. Stay low!” 

As Meg wiggles out from beneath my back, I hear car doors slamming and the rev of an engine, then the sound of a vehicle peeling away. I try to lift my left arm, even without the rifle; nothing. My legs aren’t any better. So I was good for two shots. Some support. 

Free from under me, Meg throws me a dirty look and crawls back toward the window. 

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” I call out at her, “—hang on. Stay back. They might still be out there and the wall’s not good enough cover—” 

“I’m careful,” the girl bites back. 

“Meg—“ 

She crouches by the window, tennis shoes crunching on glass, and peeks over the sill. The blunt cut of her bob brushes against the wood. “Car’s gone,” she mutters. 

“Get down,” I hiss at her. 

“Can’t see Hannibal and Bree,” she muses, ignoring me. 

“Meg,  _ get the fuck down! _ ” 

The expletive wins me a glance, but nothing more. Meg levels her laser pointer out the window and clicks it, waiting. Running out of neck strength, I let my head fall uselessly against the rough hardwood and close my eyes, trying to catch my breath. 

I open them again when I hear Meg inching back over. Relieved, I give her all I can offer — half a smile. She doesn’t return it. “When are you going to show me how to shoot?” she demands, all seriousness. 

“Christ,” is all I can say. 

“If you were lying—“ Meg leans in over me, her lips drawing tight. “—I might have to kill you.” 

My breath leaves me for a second. 

I blink at her, looking for something in her eyes. They’re brown. In the dark of the attic room, her pupils and her irises are melted together into large dark pools, twin shadows sunken into a round and cherubic prepubescent face. 

There’s no buzz. I feel the razor’s edge, as I have been, on the periphery of my mind, always within grasping range — but it isn’t reacting to Meg. 

She squints at me, challenging me to call her bluff. 

“That’s not a good reason to kill somebody,” I tell her through my teeth. “But for what it’s worth, I wasn’t lying. Now’s just not the best time.” 

Meg considers it. 

Footfalls on the stairs below us cut short any further philosophical discourse. We look at the door and when it opens, revealing Hannibal still in his jacket, I’m relieved to see him unharmed. 

For his part, he looks alarmed — at least, as alarmed as he can look. His eyes flick over me, assessing, looking for bullet holes, then land on Meg. 

She grins and gives him a thumb’s up. 

Hannibal’s shoulders relax, a nearly imperceptible quarter-inch drop. He stoops next to me, moves the rifle aside, and very gently lifts me back up into his arms. 

This time I don’t have the strength to grip back; my arm flops over his shoulder and the rest of my limbs dangle bonelessly. 

“Saw at least three men in an SUV,” I mumble in his ear, feeling faint. “Someone else shot one of them. Didn’t see who.” 

Hannibal pats my shoulder, reassuring me. He hikes me up higher against him. Unable to do anything else, I lean in against his neck and close my eyes as he turns back to the door. 

“It was probably Chee,” Meg chirps from behind us. 

I reopen my eyes, flicking them over Hannibal’s shoulder to see Meg poking at the abandoned rifle on the ground. 

“Chee?” I mumble against the crook of Hannibal’s neck. He smells like fresh sweat, a slight hint of the morning’s cologne still lingering. He angles us carefully through the door. 

“Yeah,” Meg clarifies, “Chiyoh.” 

Chiyoh. 

_...Great _ . 


	9. Games

I wake up in a room I haven’t seen before. It’s dark outside the windows, dark in the room, all shadows. The stiffness in my chest and arms is enough to tell me that I’ve slept for hours. 

Foggily I dredge up what I last remember — coming down the stairs heavy in Hannibal’s arms, my forehead bumping against his jaw — stopping on the second floor, a long dark hall — pressed against another locked door -- then the sweet scent of cinnamon and orange, the soothing repetitive clack of a ticking clock. Soft sheets and warm blankets.

That’s where I am now, neck-deep in possibly the softest bed I’ve ever been in. Sunk into the mattress, I can hardly see the dim room beyond it for the pile of the comforter and quilt towering around me.

For a harrowing second I think I’m actually tied to the bed, something not beyond the realm of possibility where Dr. Lecter is concerned. _Inconvenient compassion,_ inconvenient— not to mention awkward — for both of us. With a sigh of relief I realize I can’t move my arms or legs simply because they’re weak and sore as hell. 

I give the room a once-over, the part of it not obscured by darkness or overstuffed bedding: the walls look blue or dark grey, stately white trim borders and accents. There’s an empty fireplace across from the bed, crowned by an old-fashioned pendulum clock and a painting of medium size. The subject is a figure, but it’s too hard to make out in the dark.

By the position of the windows, this room is directly above the room I first woke up in — the only difference is the en-suite bathroom I can see out of the corner of my eye. See and desperately envy.

There’s a long, tidy desk against the far wall that I would guess was decorative but for the orderly arrangement of stacked books and papers on top of it. The edges are all square with the desk’s corners; no crooked papers or loose, unruly pens. 

This is Hannibal’s bedroom. If the aesthetics didn’t sell it enough, the sheets I’m swaddled in smell like him. 

I chastise myself for recognizing his scent so easily. 

“Hannibal?” I call out. 

My voice bounces around the empty room, flat. The house is quiet - it must be very late at night, or very early; after an evening like that it’s hard to believe that everyone can be asleep. I call out a few more times before giving up. 

I don’t realize I’m drifting off until the door opens some time later. Expecting him, I struggle with myself to lift my head and peer over to the door — but it’s only Tanya. 

She looks unkempt — sweater unbuttoned, arms rolled at the sleeves, a hint of dirt on one cheek. I wasn’t the only one who had a rough time tonight. Tanya frowns at me, crossing her arms protectively at the door. 

“You’re awake,” she observes, disappointed. “Doing ok?”

“Where’s Hannibal?” I ask, my voice rough. 

She rolls her eyes. “He isn’t back yet. Are you hungry, your majesty? Thirsty? Need the bathroom?” 

I feel my lip curl. “Yes. The last two.”

She sighs. “Okay.”

“Where did he go?” I demand, irritated. “And why — nobody mentioned to me that _Chiyoh_ is here. Why wouldn’t — and who were those people shooting at us? We nearly—“

“For God’s sake, Will, chill out.” Tanya stomps over and starts pulling the covers back. “I don’t know who they were. Bree says they’re some thugs that followed them back, probably wanted our stuff.” She scowls. “I’m _sorry_ that nobody is paying attention to you right now. There’s more important things going on.” 

I don’t have a good comeback. Tanya looks up and down my limp body, unimpressed by whatever she sees. “Can you move?”

I let out a frustrated snort. “I can _not_ move,” I confirm angrily. If I could, I’d grab her arm, compel her to answer. “I can’t lift a goddamn finger. I almost killed a man tonight without knowing who he was or what he wanted. Just tell me what’s going on!”

Tanya bares her teeth at me, then grimaces around whatever snitty comment is resting on her tongue. She breathes out heavily and then forces a smile. “I’ll just get you some water. Try — asking nicer when I get back, okay?”

I seethe while she disappears into the bathroom, unable to do much more than breathe through my nose and count out my inhales and exhales. When she gets back, I’m no happier but resigned to playing the game. 

“Hello, Tanya.” 

“Hi Will. Would you like this glass of water?”

I set my jaw. “Yes. Thank you.”

She props me up. I drink the full glass through the straw _kindly_ provided, my gulps the only sound for a long minute. Tanya sets the glass down and I choke out my bitter gratitude.

“You’re welcome.” 

“Could you please tell me,” I grind out, “what happened tonight and —“ I catch my tone wavering and correct it, “—where _Doctor Lecter_ went?”

To my surprise, the formality immediately knocks us out of our game. Tanya’s grimace relaxes immediately and she sits back a little bit, thoughtful. 

“Doctor Lecter,” she muses, trying it out. “Doctor Lecter. ...Huh. It doesn’t suit him.”

A strange sentiment, one that I now have to mull over.

“Why do you say that?” 

Tanya just shrugs. “...’Course, I wouldn’t peg him for a ‘Hannibal’ either. Kind of — I don’t know, foreign, isn’t it?”

I squint at her. “Have you really never heard that name before? On the news or anything?” 

Tanya shakes her head and shrugs again. “Should I have?”

She’s being honest. I blink. 

The media fracas that, to me, constituted three solid years of daily reminders of the worst year of my life was somehow no more than a forgettable headline or two to her. _Baltimore’s Cannibal Doctor Ruled Insane, FBI Crazy Testifies (Possibly Involved!) See Page 4 For Details_? Nothing? 

Not even the Dateline special? Those God damn reruns are on every —

— _were_ on. They _were_ on every week. 

“We — must have watched different news,” I defer carefully. 

The genuine surprise softens my mood. I twitch my shoulder in an attempt to shrug. “Yeah, he’s — Lithuanian.”

Tanya’s face changes. Her mouth stretches slowly into a disused smile, uncomfortable but genuine. “Lithuanian, huh? Well. I don’t even know where Lithuania is,” she chuckles. 

I’m not sure what to do with that, either. 

“It’s — in Europe. It’s by Poland.” 

The way she’s staring at me makes it clear that I’ve just found a neutralizing point in our contention: Hannibal trivia. She’d have had a field day browsing Tattlecrime.com. Too bad for me that most of the facts in my pocket are so unpalatable. 

“Hey,” Tanya says, still smiling, inching closer. “Why doesn’t he talk? Did something happen? Was he born that way, or...?”

“I was going to ask you,” I reply. “I don’t know. Last I knew, it felt like I could never get him to shut up.”

She laughs, dazzled, and brushes at her face. It’s innocently obscene, and I feel my hackles start to go up again. Time to change the subject. 

“But, uh — what happened tonight. That was what I ...” I remind her gently. 

“Oh, yeah.” Tanya purses her lips and rattles off the information as if we weren’t just at each other’s throats. “I’ve seen worse dogfights since the world went to hell, but this is the first time anybody’s come here — well, that I know of. Bree twisted her ankle, which slowed them down. She’s doing okay downstairs. But get this. It was all worth it, right, because the big news is that apparently Bree and Chee found some _chickens_ out in the valley.”

The word is hushed, scandalous. Tanya stops for my reaction.

“ _Chickens_?” I repeat, incredulous. 

“Chickens. Yeah. Buck-buck-buck. More than one.”

“...I had crosshairs on a guy’s head--”

Tanya grins again, her smile slightly hesitant. “Okay. Right. It probably doesn’t sound like much to you. But — trust me, it’s a big deal. They’ve been looking for livestock since the very beginning of all this, and there’s just been nothing. The creepers eat everything that moves. But now we can -- y’know. Have eggs. Not just us, Humanity! Humanity gets to have eggs. And fucking chicken! Let me tell you, Will: you get to appreciate chicken different when it’s been practically a year since you had any. After ten months, homegirl here needs herself an omelette.”

She laughs at her own joke, faltering a little when I don’t join in. “Anyway. Han and Chee went right back out to get them. The chickens. I don’t know when they’ll be back, he just asked me to look in on you, so here I am.”

Chickens. Okay. I sigh and nod to show her I understand, that I appreciate the update. 

“Can I give you some advice?” I say carefully.

Tanya’s cheer melts away. She nods, sobered. 

“Don’t call him — _Han_ , or _Hanny_ , or _Tonto_ , or — just call him by his name. I promise you that even if he acts like he doesn’t care, he cares. And he’s listening. And he’s taking notes.”

Tanya searches my face, concern growing on her own. She squints, suspicious. “‘Taking notes’?” 

“Mental notes,” I amend. “On discourtesy. Be courteous, that’s all I’m saying. I promise you—“ I chuckle, “—he will like you better.”

“He likes you just fine,” she hits back, a little too quickly. “But — okay. Whatever.”

I try to minimize my sigh of relief. Tanya half smiles, unaware that I may have just prolonged her life. 

“You need to use the bathroom, too, don’t you?” She adds. 

Regrettably, I do. 

—

I sleep again once I’m tucked back into the regal expanse of fluffy sheets, waking to sunlight skating in through half-closed blinds. 

There’s movement in the room, and I squint to make out Hannibal puttering over near the mirrored doors of the closet. His hair is wet, straight and trailing down unevenly past his ears; the air in the room carries a warm dampness and a soft scent of citrus. 

Immediately alert, I struggle to get my elbows beneath me. “Hey,” I call out blearily. If I miss him, who knows the next chance I can get him alone? 

Taking notice of me, he pauses — he’s getting dressed, tucking in his shirttails — but he proceeds to finish the routine to his satisfaction before walking over and sitting down by my legs. 

He smiles at me, an open, maskless expression, and puts his hand on my knee through the mass of covers. 

“Hi,” I tell him.

It’s strange, expecting a reply and having to tell myself it’s not going to come. Hannibal smiles his greeting.

“Rough night,” I add after a moment. He nods in agreement. 

“I heard something about chickens?”

His smile brightens, sliding slowly wider into something equally beatific and devilish. With a smirk, he flips over the cuff of his sleeve, revealing a row of fresh, raised red lines on his arm; poultry battle scars. 

“Ah. ...Did it pay dearly?” 

Humored, he cuffs his sleeve back with pride. I clear my throat. 

“When they said the girls were out looking for livestock, I didn’t realize Chiyoh was one of them.” On reflection, the attic room reminded me of the no-nonsense aesthetics that the waifish sledgehammer of a woman kept at Lecter Dvaras. “Has she updated her opinion of me at all?”

He bounces his head from one side to the other; _so-so_.

“Enough not to shoot me? —Please stop patting me.” I pull my knee away from his hand, irritated. Unperturbed, he pulls out his notebook and starts writing, a hint of a smile still playing around his lips. 

It seems rude to speak while he’s writing, so I watch patiently, wondering again what cat has his tongue. The disdain I perceived last time I pressed keeps me from bringing it up again — I’ll think of a new way to ask. After a long time he tears the page free and places it near my hand.

 _Good morning. Thank you for your assistance yesterday. Overall, it has been an exciting week. When the chickens can be convinced to lay, I will cook you oeufs en meurette to celebrate your return to the waking world._

I read it and sigh. “Great. Thank you. I have a couple of questions, if now is a good time. Reluctantly, I’d like to start with ‘Who is in the stew, Hannibal?’”

He gives me a chastising look, playful around the edges.

“I get it,” I concede, “Things are changed. If you can stand there while being called diminutive nicknames, I can adjust my moral diet in a time of crisis. I am not going to — _tell_ anyone — I just feel like it’s something I’ve earned the right to know.” 

Hannibal considers it with his head tilted to one side. He picks up his pen again with an expression that says, “if you insist.” 

_The stock is combined but it is mostly Barry at this point. I was not compelled to learn their full names. It will please you to know that they were beasts. They held repulsive attitudes toward women. Your experience of him was far more palatable than anyone else’s._

“You’ve been feeding them their abusers?” Given its contents, I hand the paper back to him for disposal. “You may as well tell them. They might enjoy the stew even more.”

I’ve never seen Hannibal smile so much. He looks proud of me. It’s not deserved; I don’t mean it. Not really. 

_A secret’s worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept. Learn to indulge in secrets, Will. I learned long ago._

I think about Tanya and the few words it might take for me to remind her where she’s heard the name _Hannibal Lecter_ before. Words I’m not going to say. It doesn’t feel enjoyable, per se, but there is something satisfying about knowing what she doesn’t. 

Or better — watching Hannibal fall for the Lounds sting. _That_ — that was satisfying. Thrilling. Maybe, yes, even enjoyable; right up until it wasn’t.

I give Hannibal an unhappy nod and change the subject. “I started reading your notes. Thank you — for watching over me, taking me to the hospital. Did I deserve it?”

He nods, his smile cooling to serenity. 

“I hope I can be useful. Once my — body starts cooperating, anyway.”

I’m holding back bringing up the topic of Tanya. Him sitting there next to me smiling gives me a warm and peaceful feeling -- a buzz different from, but not unlike, the razor’s edge between us. I’m not ready to dissolve that little high with a new potential point of contention. 

In fact, I wish I hadn’t ordered his hand off my knee earlier. I — want it back there. 

That’s odd. I grapple with the feeling for a moment, not sure how to vocalize it, or if I even should.

“I don’t want,” I start, swallowing and restarting, “I — want to stay close to you. I need to see you. Talk to you. 

“I spent so long just — running from the echoes of our conversations in the back my mind. They were always still going on, even when I tried to tune them out, turn away from them. Pretend they were someone else’s conversations.

“You were right, Hannibal, it was a failed experiment. I am meant to be facing you, not hiding. And not — holed up in a back room watching paint dry. Facing you. I can’t be any other way any more. There’s no point.”

His smile is gone. Hannibal is rigid on the bed beside me, back straight and taught, his only movement the subtle lifting and falling of his chest. 

Finally his eyes leave me and fall to the notebook on the bed by his hand. I wait. He takes his time. 

_There is much for me to do outdoors today_ , the note reads. _I hope you will not catch a chill_. 

—

Without providing any promises, written or otherwise, not to abandon me, Hannibal leaves the room in good cheer. It’s the literal opposite of what I had in mind. I spend five uncomfortable minutes staring at the painting over the fireplace and wondering if he’s actually coming back for me or not. 

I can’t name the artist, but l’d be a fool not to recognize Saint Sebastian suffering somewhat erotically across the room from me: fit, pale, barely-dressed, and impaled six ways with Roman arrows. Not exactly suitable for the dining room, but I _really_ don’t like the fact that it’s directly across from his bed. 

To my relief, he returns quickly with Tanya loping along behind him. 

She looks better than last night, her face washed and her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, but she has circles under her eyes. Her perpetual grimace is, however, softened by the morning light and a wide-eyed, uncertain preoccupation with the other man in the room. 

“Did you get any sleep?” Is the first thing out of her mouth.

She’s looking at me, but before I open my mouth to answer, I realize the question is for Hannibal. He raises his eyebrows and shakes his head by way of an answer. 

“Morning, Will,” she sighs. 

“Good morning,” I sigh back. 

Hannibal smiles graciously between the two of us, adjusting the cuffs of his no-frills button-down. _Thank you for playing so nicely._ He takes a seat at the desk, picks out a selection of books and notebooks, and promptly forgets about both of us.

Only when Tanya starts pulling the covers off of me do I realize he’s delegated my care to her again. It’s nice of him to stay in the same room, I guess. 

“Sleep well?” Tanya hums with disinterest. 

“Yes. Thanks.” 

“You need a bath,” she advises me. 

“...Okay.” I don’t love the idea of her bathing me. 

I bitterly acknowledge that my privacy is more or less moot in the household; I woke up naked, after all. Still, it’s not like I have much of a choice. My limbs all ache, but on the upside, they do feel stronger today. Maybe I can wash myself. 

“Do you want me to wash him?” Tanya asks Hannibal over her shoulder. It irks me. 

Hannibal replies magisterially without looking up, one finger in a bouncing circular motion. _Later_. 

The relief that floods over me lasts only until Tanya starts in on my physical therapy. It’s similar to what Hannibal did yesterday, lifting and rotating each of my arms and legs in turn, though I imagine the young woman is slightly rougher about it than he’d been. I can’t suppress a wince or groan or two. 

“Baby,” she mutters, just short of genial. I take it like a man. 

The workout is exhausting, but my limbs do feel much better afterward; I’m able to sit upright and get my legs off the side of the bed without much assistance. I try standing up, leaning heavily over her shoulder, but as suspected my legs aren’t ready to carry my full weight. Tanya helps me get dressed, but I handle most of that myself, too — even the shoes. 

As she’s leaving, mumbling about breakfast, she hesitates by Hannibal’s desk until he’s forced to look up from his writing. He’s got several books open: I can see a cheap spiral-bound book with half its pages gone, a big D-ring binder, and an industrial catalog the size and color of a phone book. 

The smaller notepad from his pocket sits by his left hand. Several times I see him jot something down without stopping whatever his right hand is doing. I’m not surprised. 

He acknowledges Tanya like a well-liked secretary, tearing off two sheets of paper and handing them to her with a smile. 

“Coming down for breakfast?” she asks, a soft upward lilt to her voice. She breezes over the notes in her hand. “—Uh, no. We didn’t see any eggs yet. Actually, hm, I was wondering if you and I could talk when you have a minute.” 

Hannibal sets his pen down gently and swivels to give her his full attention. Tanya’s eyes flick over to me, just for a second. 

“Oh not now,” she coughs, “later — a later minute. Uh, anyway. See you downstairs. Looks like a big day.” 

She backs her way to the door and rushes away. Hannibal is back to his notes before she’s even left the room. 

“Is it... pheromones, or something?” I say when seven or eight seconds have gone by. 

His left hand makes a note. He looks up long enough to toss the notepad over to me on the bed. 

_Baccarat Rouge 540_.

I chuckle despite myself. Thinking about Alana, Bedelia and the many admirers of Theodore Bundy, I gently toss the notebook back. “I’d save the cologne for special occasions. Doesn’t sound like they’re making any more of it.” 

Then, tentatively: “You already got her to kill someone, from what I can gather. Your favorite game. What game are you playing now?” 

Hannibal’s pencil stills. He is statuesque for a few seconds, then he cocks his head to the side. Slowly, he spins around in his chair, assessing me with blank features.

The note he scribbles and passes to me is blunt. _You are uncomfortable with the perception of women coming between us._

The laugh splutters out of me. It’s not hysterical — it’s not. “That’s —“ 

_True_. No, not true. Wholly unfair. “— don’t deflect,” I snap, “It’s not going to work. That girl is wrapped around your little finger. She’s angry, she’s tired, she’s hurting. If we are all here just — trying to survive, you don’t need her fawning over this Paul Bunyan act in order for her to want to _help_ you. Or me. She’s going to help.” 

I stare him down with as much grit as I can muster, extending the notepad toward him after a moment. He doesn’t move immediately, staring back at me hollowly through his mask. There is no hint of a smile now. 

When he does move, he doesn’t reach to take the notepad. Instead, he stands and flicks a short black and silver folding knife from the pocket of his slacks. 

The invisible edge buzzes in the air between us as he snaps the blade out. I freeze.

Stone-faced, he turns and makes for the door with long, determined strides. 

No. No. 

“Hannibal!” I bark, my legs twitching. “Hannibal — stop. Stop, stop, _please_ stop. Please. Wait!”

He stops halfway to the door.

Mentally kicking myself, I let my head fall back and run a hand over my face. He stopped, so it was a test. I’ve just failed it. 

I bare my teeth at the back of his head. “Is this it? Is this how it’s going to be now?”

I’m pleading. That alone is its own kind of defeat. When he doesn’t turn around, I keep talking, resigned. It’s all I have. 

“I said it’s okay to let her go. Not _go_ _kill_ _her_ because you’re mad at me for daring to call your impure motives _impure_. I can’t stop you, but I can’t let you hold that cudgel over me.”

He turns around, his face still blank. 

“Kill her to hurt me. I kill something else to hurt you. Keep killing everything until there’s nothing left in the world except the two of us. Is that the idea?” I laugh humorlessly. “Pretty boring world.” 

Hannibal inhales deeply, lifting his eyebrows, his lips parting slightly. He looks as though he’s going to answer.

The lamp in the corner and the light from the bathroom, neither of which I’ve given much notice, both flick out in unison as an electronic sigh settles over the building. The generator doing what it does best. Only the sound of the clock remains, punching away dutifully from the mantle. 

Hannibal is silent. He casts a glance to the window as though to look out at the generator, but I’m not done yet. This conversation doesn’t need electricity. 

“This game might have been fun before, but it’s old now. Who’s going to be your secretary when everybody’s dead?” I nod toward the window. “Who’s going to kick the generator?” 

Hannibal’s mask slips, just a little, and I get the impression that he’s — stressed? An uncomfortable tremor of _frustration_ , something I’ve never seen on him before. Not when I held a gun to his head, not when we bumped shoulders swinging in the back of a Verger meat truck. Not even when a jury of his peers decided he would spend the rest of his life behind plexiglass. 

It’s only for a second. He settles the mask back into place with a minute adjustment of his jaw, a lifting of his shoulders. He meanders back over to stand in front of me, the knife outstretched in his hand. 

Buzz, buzz, buzz. 

I keep my eyes locked on his. I can feel his heartbeat as though his hand is resting on my chest. 

He reaches down with his empty hand and lifts mine, stroking his thumb gently over the ridge of my knuckles. The world is inverted, sound and color all opposite and distorted, but I missed when it happened. It’s like it’s always been this way. Like I’ve always been this way. 

_Abigail walked toward him when he held out his hand to her._

_I’m going to die,_ I think. 

_It doesn’t matter_. _I’m okay_.

It’s peaceful.

Hannibal turns my hand over, folds the knife, and places it in my palm. 

All I can do is stare at it, like I don’t recognize what it is. Maybe what I’m really staring at is the gesture. The knife is the width of my palm, heavy for a small blade. Sharp.

I have to blink a few times when I look away; with refocused eyes the room feels smaller, darker. No longer inverted, but the buzzing hasn’t stopped. We’re still here on the edge with each other. 

Hannibal’s been writing. I look dumbly away from the knife to the paper he holds out to me.

 _Breakfast_? It says. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept." –Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind


	10. Breakfast

I have to carry three books in my arms in addition to my new knife when we go downstairs. Hannibal’s arms are full of me. 

I clip the silver weapon into my shirt pocket as we lumber down the single flight of stairs, trying not to think too hard about how easy it would be to hit his heart with it from this position. It’s a stupid scenario: successful or not, after he drops me the women come running. Tanya, Chiyoh — maybe Meg — one of them fishes the knife right out of him and sticks it into me. It’s not good enough.

Anyway -- I’ve already tried the murder-suicide route. Zero-sum extends to that as well. 

The energy in the house is different this morning; animated voices from the kitchen and first floor hall compete for attention, and Hannibal’s arrival downstairs takes it to a fervor. Anticipating us, Meg skids to a halt at the bottom of the stairs, shouting “No eggs yet!” and darting back off, presumably to monitor for up-to-the-minute egg activity. From the soft murmur of clucking noises, the creatures are inside and not far away. 

Hannibal sets me down directly into the wheelchair, which is still sitting next to the sofa. I juggle the books to my lap in order to give the wheels a try. I’m not ready for any Paralympics, but I could probably run myself into the nearest wall unassisted— it’s only a little easier than the chair I was using the first night. He watches me struggle for a minute, amused, then politely intercepts and wheels me toward the hall. 

I see her before I’m ready. Slender, square and hawkish, she’s standing straight-backed by the door to the dining room, listening to Sue with a blank expression. Chiyoh fixes on me as fast as I fix on her, a hungry raptor to my mangled mongoose. 

Hannibal stops us two or three feet closer to her than I prefer to be. Turning from Sue, Chiyoh speaks first, moving nothing but her lips. 

“Hello, Will.”

I am getting really sick of being so goddamn polite. 

“Chiyoh. You’re looking well.”

She does — at least as well as she did that night on the train. Three years, five thousand miles and one apocalypse notwithstanding. 

Her makeup is lighter than I remember, but her utilitarian sense of style hasn’t changed much here at the end of the world. Despite cohabiting with Hannibal, she doesn’t seem to have gained any weight. Maybe it’s because she _knows_ now. 

“When did you get to the States?” I ask her as neutrally as I can. She wouldn’t have had time to get on a plane when news of Hannibal’s escape went public.

Chiyoh glances across the hall, crossing her arms. Picking up on an unspoken request for space, Sue shuffles between us to get to the dining room; only a considerate illusion of privacy. Tanya is still stomping in between two rooms further down the hall. Any real catch-up will have to wait until later. 

“January,” Chiyoh answers, pithy. “ _That_ January.” 

_That January_ has a lot of meaning for all three of us - enough so that I’m forced to look away. “You’ve been here for three years? Doing what, exactly? Staking out the Baltimore State —“ 

I catch myself just in time, half-grimacing. “— I thought you were ready to move on with your life,” I say instead. 

“That hardly matters now,” she replies. 

I don’t have a chance to argue. I can’t see Hannibal’s face, but he pats my shoulder with one hand — an attempt to reassure me, or maybe a message for Chiyoh; _hands off_. He glides me forward and around his diminutive bodyguard into the dining room and the same spot near the end of the table. 

To the right of his own chair, I can’t help but notice. Maybe it’s coincidental, but then again, so little about him is. _He raised me from the dead and seated me at His right hand..._

Breakfast is not the same orderly affair that was our last meal together. Sue mentions that she ate earlier, but asks if she can bring out toast and oatmeal for us. Tanya breezes in, looking irritated, with a pot of coffee and some mugs for the table, but she leaves quickly and without making conversation. The kid is still banging around the hallway —trying to talk to Chiyoh about chickens by the sound of it. At least one rooster screams at intervals from downstairs.

Hannibal opens the books we brought down and flips through the binder, sliding the tome over to me when he finds the right page. _Diag. O-23_ , the title reads, his own handwriting, _Chicken Coop and Run._

The illustrations are flawless, better quality than a manual rendering. The first page has a three-quarter, front and bird’s eye angle of a nice-looking coop. Cutaway and exploded versions follow. A numbered list to the side of each drawing identifies each material. He’s signed the bottom of each page as though it were fine art. 

“These are good,” I tell him, honestly impressed. I wonder if he’s ever built anything in a medium other than flesh; I don’t think I’d be surprised either way. “This is what you’re doing outside today? Building this?”

I skip through other diagrams. _Windmill, dam, gatehouse, greenhouse, well, watch tower, radio tower_. There are at least a hundred schematics, each carefully rendered, each material numbered out and labeled with precision. 

Hannibal looks thoughtful, pulling the binder away from me to flip it back to the page with the coop. Instead of answering, he sets out the other books: a half-used, full-size notepad and a thick paperback catalog with hundreds of yellow, tissue-thin pages.

The catalog, upon inspection, is for a company called Mortison’s Industrial Supply out of Charlottesville. In conjunction with the drawings, it clicks immediately: Hannibal is working on a shopping list. When he opens the notebook, the page is filled with numbers from the diagrams. The first ten, complete, have names and part index numbers listed next to them. 

Sliding the notebook in front of me, he taps the incomplete numbers. _Oh._

“I got it,” I nod, reaching for the pen. I might end up being useful after all. 

Hannibal leaves me to it. As he picks up his own pencil in turn, he pauses to flex and shake out his right hand. _How long have you been writing down every thought in your head?_ I wonder aimlessly before searching through the catalog for — what was it? Tar paper.

“Are we having a team meeting?” Tanya calls out brashly some minutes later, ducking her head into the dining room. It’s more of a command than a question. “Team meeting. Everyone find a chair. Hannibal, is it OK if I move Bree, with her leg? Okay, I’ll go get Bree. Everyone get your coffee and sit. You too, Meg.”

I’m only half done with the list, but in the spirit of things I set the pen down. Chiyoh takes a prim seat at the far end of the table, directly across from Hannibal, and we share a cool look before I get back to the list. He’s numbered out the same nails throughout his diagrams, but a few joints would definitely need screws. I don’t feel bad marking the corrections directly onto his drawings. 

“I’ve got it, now. I’ve got it,” a new voice carries from the hall, distinct and sonorous enough to grab my attention. I look up to see Tanya reenter with her arm around the final member of the household, the same woman I watched Hannibal help across the street last night. 

Bree is a tall woman, angular, with short cropped hair and dark skin. She’s wearing a wraparound sweater, comfortable clothing, like me — invalid chic — but by her height and her shoulders, she’d easily take me in a fight even given the brace currently encasing her left ankle. Tanya guides her into a chair at Chiyoh’s end of the table.

Bree seeks me out, eyes lighting up when she finds me. “Hello Will,” she beams, her voice a smooth alto. “Welcome to the world of the mostly living. I’ll shake your hand later, it’s a little hard to get down there.”

“Likewise,” I tell her, indicating the wheelchair. “You’re Bree. Nice to meet you.” Is it? Well — benefit of the doubt for now. “I saw you last night. Crossing the street.”

“And I thank you for the cover,” she replies, earnest, “and I thank God for bringing you back to us.” 

Interesting, specific attribution. I bet Hannibal _loves_ her. “Are you all right?” 

Bree has a very deliberate way of speaking, not exactly slow but direct, musical. “I’ve been better, but a twisted ankle can be life and death out there. I am thankful that I will live to run again. Every breath is a blessing.” 

She raises her coffee mug high, saluting the far end of the table. “I may as well ask. Does this mean I get a day off, Doctor? I feel like we earned it, given our discovery.” She nudges Chiyoh with her elbow, all smiles, and as if on cue a rooster caws, again from inside the house. I decide that, lacking a better space for them, they are being stored in the stairwell -- probably by the patio door. 

To my astonishment, Chiyoh twitches her lips upward in what might actually be a sign of good humor; she says nothing. 

The note that Hannibal passes to Tanya comes incredibly quickly. He is back to his work without looking up. 

“He says ‘no, you must study,’” Tanya calls down to Bree, drawling sympathetically. 

Bree laughs, unfazed by the blunt nature of the note. “I was only playing. At least I can sit for a few days.”

“What are you studying?” I ask her. 

“Anatomy. Like the dickens. I once swore I’d never go to med school — now, well, I suppose it isn’t technically medical school, but as one of maybe five people in the world with access to a doctor, this is as close as it gets. The signs couldn’t be any clearer if the Lord smacked me in the head with them. Doctors are in short supply anymore, so… I am fortunate I get to learn from a good one.” 

She salutes Hannibal with her mug again, then catches herself. “Six people, now, not five. Sorry, Will. I’ll have to get used to thinking about you as a household member instead of a vegetable.”

“Right. Thanks.” I glance at Hannibal, more interested in seeing how he took her compliment. He’s smiling wanly, tapping his pencil on his notepad. He’s irritated, but I doubt the others can pick up on it. After it’s clear that Bree has finished talking, Hannibal gestures to Tanya, who sits up straighter and consults the papers in front of her. _Back to business._

“So, uh, today’s going to be fun,” she begins, “Hannibal wrote that on their way back last night, he and Chiyoh found where those punks were hiding out and made sure they won’t be a problem here any more.”

“How’s that?” I interrupt. 

Tanya glares at me, but I look from Hannibal to Chiyoh, waiting for an answer. 

“We talked to them,” Chiyoh says flatly. “With guns in our hands.” 

“How did you think?” Tanya drawls at me.

I’m a little surprised to find that I believe Chiyoh at face value; then again, I’ve talked to her with a gun in her hand. Twisting the left side of my face into an apologetic frown, I nod to Tanya and wave it off. “Nothing. Sorry. Continue.”

She gives me a good scornful stare before returning to the notes. “The biggest concern for today is that these chickens can’t stay in the stairwell, they can’t go outside in the paddock and we can’t just put them in one of the garages - they need to be close to us and warm. So we’re going to try to get a coop up by nightfall. It’s going to take just about everybody’s help. We can worry about the fence project after the chickens are taken care of. They’re not in great condition to begin with, and we can’t really afford to lose any of them.”

“Ah, I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” I interrupt again, glancing over the diagrams. I look from Tanya to Hannibal. “This is a two-day job, minimum. Especially if we don’t have some of these materials yet. We get them, with everyone helping, we might be able to paint the base before nightfall. It’s still going to be a stretch.”

“You want to paint it? I hardly think the color of the coop is important, Will,” Tanya scoffs. 

I shake my head. “It’s not painted for color. It’s painted for sealant. Keeps moisture and bugs out of the cracks, protects the wood.” 

She considers this with discomfort, eventually nodding in reluctant agreement. “Right. Well, anyway, the coop is going up inside the perimeter fence, in the side yard, next to the garden. We’ll make a two-person run to Mortison’s this morning. Easy trip.”

“Not it,” Bree chuckles. “Praise be.” 

“I’ll go,” Meg says. 

“Hannibal nominated Chiyoh and me. I’m fine with that,” Tanya looks down the table with her eyebrows raised. “Are you ok to go out again, Chee?”

I have the honor of watching Chiyoh’s eyes narrow furiously in reaction to the nickname. Otherwise very still, she nods her head dutifully. She’s looking at Hannibal, not Tanya. 

“Meg and Sue, you’ll help the guys until we get back? And he’s written here, ‘plain lunch, late dinner’ and it’s... what is that? ‘Venison ossobuco.’ Oh,” Tanya looks up, confused. “I didn’t know we had any deer left. Huh.”

_Huh indeed._ I rub the spot on my forehead where I feel a scream building in order to silence it. 

Sue cackles from my right. “Just when I think the cupboards are getting bare, he’s always got something to pull out of that deep freezer. I’ll bet we’re set through the winter. Are we, Hannibal? Set through the winter?”

Hannibal nods regally without looking up, disinterested -- maybe even dismissive. 

He stops writing briefly to shake out his wrist again, then reaches out and touches my forearm gently. I start, staring at his hand in confusion -- but he is simply bringing my attention to my untouched bowl of oatmeal. 

_Eat_ , he says; not with words, but by picking up my spoon and ringing the edge of it against the ceramic bowl.

Sighing, I return to the list, drawing the oatmeal closer and getting to work on that, too. Better than thinking too hard about what’s in the deep freezer.


	11. Words and Weapons

Tanya and Chiyoh move out first, the former helping Bree get to the living room with her books. They return by the time the list is finished, both dressed for war.

They both wear thick dark coats and utility boots; their hair is pulled back tightly. Tanya, looking properly redneck-tough in a pink-embroidered Browning cap, has a pistol holstered on one side of her hip, a machete on the other, and a compound bow slung over her back. 

Chiyoh, it appears, hasn’t updated her personal arsenal in three years. I can’t tell if it’s the same rifle that leveled between us when we met, but it may as well be. She has it on a strap peeking over her shoulder, no case; not to limit herself, she also has a machete hanging off one hip.

Hannibal disappears with Sue and Meg, instructing me to wait as he shows them what is needed outside. I look between Tanya and Chiyoh and sigh unhappily, wondering if I can make it out of the dining room by myself. 

Tanya looks to have the same idea as me, but she has less reason to shy away from confrontation. “You know,” she hums, looking from me to Chiyoh, “It’s funny, I asked both of you how you met Hannibal and neither of you actually answered me. Isn’t that funny?” 

“I told you,” Chiyoh counters, giving Tanya a once-over. 

“You told me you met as kids. You,” she points at me, “you didn’t tell me anything.” 

“We worked together,” I grumble, shaking my head dismissively. 

“Ah, right. ‘Intimately’?”

“Very.” I narrow my eyes. “Why is this so important to you?” I already know. 

Tanya hesitates, looking between Chiyoh and me again. “It’s — it’s not. Fuck.” Her shoulders slump. “Sorry. Hannibal saves our lives, invites us to live here with you all, feeds us. Super nice. And you -- both of you -- it’s like there’s a wall. A wall between the three of you and the four of us. I get that Hannibal can’t talk, but you two can. I just wish you would talk.”

“You want us to talk? Or you want us to talk about _Hannibal_?” I prod. “You don’t seem to like it much when I talk.” 

“All you’ve said so far are vague, threatening, defensive-sounding veiled warnings. All Chee ever says are these vague, poetic observations that she has.” 

“You should hear what Hannibal says,” I mutter. 

Chiyoh huffs. “My name is--” 

“Chi _y_ _oh_. Right. _Sorry_.” Tanya pulls at the end of her ponytail, not sounding particularly sorry. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry for getting all direct about it. Believe it or not, I’m trying to clear the air. Hannibal cares about you both a lot. Will, when we came here and saw you, Chiyoh told me you were _just like him_. And Chiyoh, you are this super level-headed, calm, bad-ass. You’re amazing. So -- I’m determined to like you both. Like he does. Please just try and work with me? I know I must come off as bossy -- I just can’t stay quiet when I’m frustrated.” 

“Yeah. Noble,” I tell her. “...Not necessarily _smart_.” 

Tanya blinks at me, her lips parting in injured surprise. 

Unlike the last time, her eyes don’t light up in anger. She closes her mouth, her face blank. Without saying a word, she turns and hurries out of the room, leaving Chiyoh and me alone.

The two of us watch each other for a long time before either of us speaks. 

“You haven’t changed,” Chiyoh eventually observes. 

“Hm,” I grunt, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “Have you changed?” 

“I changed when I met you,” she says sadly. “Do you change everyone you meet?” 

“No. Not everyone.” I nod at the door, an object to represent Tanya’s wounded flight. “You’ve known Hannibal longer than anyone. What usually happens to the foolish mortals that have the bad fortune of falling in love with him?”

“Unfortunate things.” 

I don’t doubt it. 

“He’s not afraid of you,” Chiyoh continues, speaking slowly, “but I’m still afraid for him. Do I need to be afraid for him?” Her eyes drop to my shirt pocket, where the clip of the knife weighs it down at the center. I can’t forget it’s there, either; it tugs at my collar. 

I don’t reply. An hour ago I was contemplating sticking it into his heart. 

“I was wrong about you, Will.” 

Chiyoh sounds almost apologetic. The absurdity of it makes me chuckle. 

“Oh, were you? About what, exactly? Something tells me you’re not about to apologize for what happened back on that train.” They weren’t the worst scars I picked up that week or that year, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be bitter about it. Several of them are on my face. “Or in Florence, for that matter. That was you in the courtyard, wasn’t it?” 

If Tanya were a fish, she’d bite an empty hook. Chiyoh isn’t so easily baited. “I wasn’t wrong about that,” she blinks. “When we met each other, I asked if you were Hannibal’s _nakama_. You are like him. You share with him. He is your friend -- but you are not his. It’s not the right word.”

My jaw clenches and relaxes twice. “For what we are,” I clarify hotly, “there’s no word. Not in English, anyway.” 

Frustrated, I spin the chair toward the door with some effort. This involves pushing the wheel on my right; my wounds are all healed, but that shoulder has been both stabbed and shot -- twice. Once by her. A slow, jerky 180 is the closest I can come to a dismissive exit; hopefully it’s still a little better than Tanya’s. 

The single word Chiyoh utters is sharp, knife-like; even her voice seems to break around it. The word hits the back of my head in two slashing syllables that sting the tips of my ears. “ _Saiai_.” 

I sigh, drifting to a stop. Of course I have to stop. 

I turn my head, infinitely easier than turning the chair. “What’s it mean?” I ask, already resigned to the bad odds of getting a straight answer. 

Chiyoh doesn’t reply, looking past me. After a second I follow her gaze to the door. Hannibal is waiting there, a small and optimistic smile playing around his lips. He looks from one of us to the other, expectant. 

Presently he taps his wrist, making no other change in his expression. Chiyoh blinks and nods, shrugging the strap of her rifle higher up on her shoulders. Time to find Tanya again and get going. 

Chiyoh walks like a heron on a lake, I decide as she leaves. Careful steps, very balanced -- each step disturbing as little silt as possible. Delicate and deliberate as she seeks out the minnow she will impale. She pauses at the door, looking back at me. 

“There is a word for it in English,” she tells me as she goes.


	12. Shop

Hannibal wheels me through the second door in the living room for the first time en route to the garage -- or the “workshop,” as Sue called it — after Tanya and Chiyoh depart. Meg and Sue are outside clearing the area for the construction, leaving the two of us to start the actual building. 

For all the good I’m worth. As much as I slow things down, I’m just glad Hannibal is honoring my request to stay close. 

The short hall beyond the door to the living room dumps out into what was once a wide and attractive upper-class suburban foyer. Now, thick plywood covers the front door and windows; the ornate chandelier overhead glistens, unlit, over rows of wooden crates. 

More attention-grabbing than the oddly fortified entrance is the truly humbling collection of hunting rifles, assault weapons, archery equipment and blunt instruments filling the space. The weapons hang from improvised racks bolted along each wall, organized by type, all within grabbing distance. Whatever it was before, it’s an armory now. 

_Grandiose displays of weaponry have been a feature of royal palaces since the 17th century_ , his voice echoes in my head. I shake it out gently; _have I ever actually heard him say those words? Did I make the date up?_

He doesn’t give me long to soak it all in, but before we continue through the opposite door I glimpse a weapon that stands out simply because it isn’t hanging up. Leaning innocuously near the barricaded front door, I spot the slim and slightly curved scabbard of a katana.

By the type and location, I’d wager that it is the same one Hannibal carried on his back last night. An antique, surely, with a very relevant modern repurposing: slicing into the brains of the undead. Or the still-living, given the man who owns it. 

We continue straight past the armory through another door into a cramped laundry room, then Hannibal opens the last door on the right - the door to the garage. 

Cool, musty air hits my face even before he flicks on the lights. The space would fit two cars, but it doesn’t -- no room. The garage is filled to bursting. Half is lined with work benches and a sizeable table saw, cramped close; the other half of the space is packed with stacks of lumber, a handful of large oil drums, and a variety of machinery. I see multiple power generators, an air compressor, everything from a large band saw to what looks like an industrial water filtration unit. 

Woven through the beams overhead there’s more lumber, PVC and copper pipe sections, coils of rope and extension cords. I see at least one fishing rod. There’s a bicycle. There’s what looks like a complete set of samurai armor sitting at the edge of one of the work benches. Next to the door, several hard-to-identify cuts of meat hang, salted and roped, drying.

Despite the overflowing contents, the garage isn’t untidy, per se. I don’t know how much of this stuff was here to begin with and what’s been brought -- I mean, the kayak? -- but it certainly has Hannibal’s fastidiousness written all over it. The pegboard is crammed with tools, but they are all in place. The work benches are all cleared and free of dust and debris. The floor, what’s visible of it, is swept. 

I have to stop looking when I realize he’s in the process of rolling me down three cement steps, back wheels first. I lean back into the chair uneasily, bouncing with each drop; once I make it down, he places me within reach of the table saw and the work bench. 

“Nice workshop,” I offer up, still looking around. I almost ask him if he’s collected all this stuff himself, but ultimately bite my tongue. He’s had enough to write; it’s better to save the questions for the important things. 

He stares at his notes for what seems like a long time; only his eyes move, darting minutely up and down the diagrams. When I see his finger start to tap mindlessly on the edge of the bench, I clear my throat. “Framing first?”

He nods, scans the diagrams for another four or five seconds, then abruptly gets to work. 

Hannibal starts with gloves, which doesn’t surprise me at all, though it’s weird to see him with the rough leather carpentry gloves on his hands. He slides 2x4s out of a stack by the garage door, lays them on the bigger of the three work benches, and pauses to roll his shirtsleeves up. 

It exposes his tawny but healthily muscled forearms under the halogen lighting. Those same lights cast the hollows of his eyes into anonymous darkness; it reminds me of the monster that lives on the edge with me. Living, at least for the moment, pretty stably. 

Without much else to do, I settle for holding the tape measure when he is not actively using it. An ornamental job, but I’m glad to do something other than sit, and he’s glad to play along as though it’s a crucial task. Staying close to him was all I asked for; I can double as a back pocket.

Hannibal works the measurements from memory, marking off points along the plate boards before the studs are even cut. Swift swipes of the pencil on virgin wood. 

He’s a natural — a little too precise to be practical, if I’m feeling judgmental. I watch him work in silence: collecting the studs in both arms to take to the saw, lining them up, pausing to put on goggles. Shaking his long hair out of his line of sight. 

He stops after each cut to brush the sawdust to the floor and I finally start to get impatient. By the pendulum clock softly ticking over the door, it’s almost ten o’clock already. Is this the same man who — _installed_ Beverly Katz at the observatory without anybody noticing? How long did that take? 

Still, I hold my tongue. I’m the tape measure holder. I don’t even see why the chickens can’t stay in the stairwell for a few days; they very likely will. 

He finishes lining up the coop wall and pulls a hammer from the peg board, gripping it assuredly and then pausing again to shake out his hand. I narrow my eyes. When he retrieves a box of nails from the far shelf, I finally open my mouth.

“Come here for a second.” 

Hannibal turns to me, head cocked. I beckon with my hand when he hesitates. After a moment he approaches, the hammer still half-extended. 

I sigh lightly and reach out, taking his hand with one of mine and encircling the hammer with the other. For a moment his grip remains firm on the tool; I look up and quirk my eyebrow at him, imploring. _Trust me._

His hesitation is brief. Hannibal’s fist relaxes under my hand and I pull the hammer away. He watches attentively as I set it on the work bench next to us, deliberately within easy reach — a sign of trust. _We are dealing heavily in them today_ , I think, feeling the weight of the pocketknife in my shirt. 

With the hammer out of the way, I pull off the loose leather glove and set that aside, too, before taking his hand between both of mine. 

_It’s carpal tunnel from all the writing,_ I reason, _or it’s arthritis or something — serves the crazy bastard right._ My hands cramp often enough when I’m elbow-deep in an outboard motor or fly-tying; a little loosening usually helps. I cup his hand with both thumbs against the back of it, my fingers pressing into his palm. I squeeze outward, then down, then outward again, looking for the tension and drawing it out. 

His hands are long and square and bony, the skin just a little loose — but they’re strong, like stone or metal runs through them rather than hollow bone. He has artist’s hands, and although the medium is blood, they’re still not heavily weathered. His nails and cuticles are clean and flawless. Working down the length of his index finger, I seek out the pressure point at the base of his thumb and hold it for two or three heartbeats, long enough to pinch the nerve.

A nearly imperceptible gasp, little more than a sharp intake of air, draws my attention up to his face. Hannibal stares back down at me with his lips half-parted; his expression might be bewilderment or it might be disgust —it’s hard to say. From experience, whatever I am looking at might be entirely faked. 

All at once it occurs to me what I’m doing: I’m sitting here massaging the hand of another man. The fact that it’s _this particular man_ should have more weight than the unexpected blip of gay panic that flashes in some backwards, deep-ingrained part of my head, but here I am. 

A hot wave of embarrassment rolls down from my forehead to my cheeks and neck. My hands freeze and I loosen my grip, pulling back. 

His fingers catch mine. 

I stare at our hands, still feeling hot. I don’t know what it means, and I don’t know if I’m willing to think about what it means. The flush isn’t just in my face now, it’s in my arms and legs, it’s stirring in my crotch — unusual place for embarrassment to manifest — and all I can do is stare at the back of his hand as he squeezes my fingers, not letting me draw away. 

Realizing that I’m holding my breath, I pant out two quickly, not yet meeting his eyes again. Stuck in place, there is only one thing to do that seems fitting; I softly lower my thumbs back onto the ridge of his knuckles. _Lean in. Finish what you started_. 

His muscles relax and he releases my fingers as I resume, finding the spaces between his bones and massaging them gently, squeezing at the muscles in the fat of his palm and thumb. I bend and flex his fingers, smoothing along each digit, squeezing each joint one by one. 

_I’m mapping you_ , I think idly, moving from place to place, muscle to muscle; _this, too, will be a room in my mind._

When I have covered each part of his hand and run out of ideas, I do finally look up at him, now less embarrassed and more curious about what I will find. Hannibal regards me, calm except for the rising and falling of his chest, his lips slightly parted.

The almost-affronted expression from earlier is gone; he watches me now unblinking, unsmiling, and transfixed. He is crocodilian under the fluorescent lights, still as a predator, and it feels like he is looking inside of me instead of at me.

It’s a very — hungry look. 

My heart’s thudding in my throat. I try to swallow it back down, breaking the spell with stammering half-sarcasm. “Did—ah, did that help at all? Or was it just — intensive, unnecessary hand-holding?” 

In response, he lifts his hand away and flexes it experimentally. As he moves, the shadows falling on his face move; he seems less animalistic, or at least less reptilian. It's reassuring. Seemingly satisfied, Hannibal lowers his hand and proceeds to bow to me slightly from the waist.

I chuckle, relief washing over me. _See? Not strange at all._

“You know what might be easier, not to mention faster?” I point my chin at a shelf behind him crammed with small tools. “That’s a pneumatic nailer over there, and it looks like there’s at least half a band of nails in it. Fire up that air compressor; I’ll hold the boards in place.” 

We get all four walls done within the hour. 


	13. Modus Operandi

_Hannibal draws iodine over the back of my hand, holding it out between us over the corpse of Randall Tier._

_His dining room is silent, the only sound being the faint bubbling of the kettle from the adjacent kitchen and the ticking of the clock on the mantle; another antique pendulum. “Did you kill me with your hands?” He asks me, sliding cotton over my ragged skin._

_I’m looking at him, but the form on the table becomes him, too: face torn, blood spotting the collar of his cream shirt, splotched over argyle cotton print. His neck twisted. His eyes open, cloudy with death._

_“It was very intimate,” I tell him, and in a blink it’s just me alone with the corpse on the table._

_I crowd in close to it. He looks like Hannibal, but this dream is built from the very real memory of Randall on the table, his cooling skin, the flecks of snow melting on his clothes, on me, the ice that slipped into my boots as we struggled. The hot blood and the melting snow. The tactile sensation of his clothes under my gloves as I carried him — that is real._

_I lower myself over the angular bones of Hannibal’s dead face, the warmth of my breath bouncing off his lukewarm skin and back to my lips. I hover centimeters above him, just looking. Every hair, every pore, every inch of flesh — there’s nothing within it. The ghost is gone. It’s meat._

_It’s meat._

_“I’ve never felt more alive than the moment I killed you,” I breathe against Hannibal’s thin lips, whispering — as if speaking any louder will breathe the life back into him._

_My own lips, chapped from the cold, tickle against his, and everything from my stomach to my throat aches. I put a gloved hand on either side of his face, holding myself back from what my body is trying to make me do._

_If I touch him, I think, I’ll undo it all. Every inch I managed, clawing and tearing, to put between us in my struggle to get away. Every piece of my body and mind rebuilt without him. Every stitch in my stomach, my shoulders, my face -- it will all unravel, and I'll unravel._

_Don't touch him. Don't give the life back._

_but my arms are growing weak_

_"I've never felt more alive than the moment I killed us," I tell the corpse._

_And behind me, in my ear, Hannibal’s voice— alive, a deep rumble, like a tiger's cautionary growl._

_“Then you owe me a debt, Will.”_

I jerk awake, my cheek digging uncomfortably into the back of the wheelchair. 

Cool air pricks my nose and ears. I’m outside— that’s right. I blink against the sunlight and swallow hard, rattled. 

The afternoon comes back to me fast. With our framing done, Hannibal rushed the four of us through our “plain”lunch of bread and canned fruit, deer jerky — hopefully deer — and a sort of pretentious trail mix with dried dates, pistachios and walnuts. They ensconced me in a blanket on the back porch, outside but out of the way. Without much to do except peruse Hannibal’s journal, I must have drifted off. 

Feeling very warm, I snake a hand out from the blanket to catch some drool from the corner of my mouth. The dream was uncomfortable and unexpected; I am half-hard from it, ashamed despite my privacy. _Why?_

I’ve had that dream before — variations of it, on and off, ever since the night I actually killed Randall Tier. Sometimes it’s nothing more than a muscle memory of the pressure on his chin and the sound his spine made when I snapped it. Sometimes it’s only Hannibal’s calming voice, the prying questions about what it _felt_ like. 

They’re infrequent, gladly. They come after quiet Sundays at home, after days filled with grocery shopping and the DMV, hot coffee and cold mornings by the lake. I’ve never determined the trigger, never tried to explain them to Molly. The Tier dreams aren’t the worst of them, and Molly was always wise enough to leave me alone when I needed to shake off the shadows.

The dreams have never gone in that … direction before. It sits with me uncomfortably. 

Shaking it off and sucking in cool air, I squint down into the yard to see if I’ve missed much. The property is large for a residential street, big enough that the sound of a rooster’s crowing won’t draw too much attention from sound-seeking revenants wandering the woods. If anything, the positioning of the new coop will draw them from the back of the property into the paddock trap. 

I have a clear view of “The Garden” from the deck — that is, the strip of land between the house and the iron boundary fence. It’s more than somebody’s repurposed vegetable garden. For starters, it’s about four times the size of any backyard garden I’ve ever seen, at least six rows deep and twenty or thirty feet across. It’s half-overwintered, with several of its perfectly-symmetrical rows covered over with tarps or straw. It gives me an idea of how much produce Hannibal and Chiyoh have cultivated over the better part of the year. Sue isn’t wrong — we’ll be fine for the winter. 

Hannibal left me with the slim, rectangular case I’d seen him carry earlier; as I’d guessed, it is a set of binoculars. They’re old, made-like-they-used-to, heavy. Engraved elegantly into the base are the letters _HL_. I lift them, propping my arms on the sides of the chair, to get a better look at the progress on the construction site. 

The spot they’ve chosen for the coop is at the edge of the garden, parallel with the paddock. The girls spent the morning digging out a base for it; while I was sleeping, the three of them managed to get all of the posts placed. 

I see Hannibal and Sue fussing over a corner post, taking turns checking the top of it with a level and shoving at the block of wood sticking up from the ground. Sue’s explaining something, or trying to; Hannibal’s lips are pinched in thinly veiled irritation, his shoulders slumped. 

His dilemma is clear enough even at a distance: if he bashes her brain in with the hammer in his pocket — the one he keeps touching — who will help him hold the boards in place when the time comes to nail? _How inconvenient._

Sighing below the binoculars, I wonder if I can simply tell the women to run. I doubt anything I can say will compel them, possibly including the truth. Again — no. A bad idea with bad consequences. 

I can’t see Meg anywhere — she was with them before I drifted off, swinging a pointed stick around and lending a hand when called to help. I don’t worry about her, partially because I trust Hannibal to be alert to danger and partially because I’ve met the child. 

The question is answered when the sliding glass door to the house clicks open and Meg strolls out onto the deck behind me, the stick still over her shoulder. In denim and an oversized sweatshirt today, her gender presentation is ambiguous — guarded, in a way. She strolls up alongside my chair and stops to narrow her eyes down at me. 

“I haven’t forgotten,” I tell her preemptively.

Meg sighs. It might be melodramatic, it’s hard to tell. “I guess the chickens are more important right now,” she concedes, frowning and looking over the railing. “They woke us up last night. A lot.” 

“Where do you sleep?” I ask her, looking at the house. “I think I’ve seen most of the first floor, now, some of the second floor, the attic...” 

She frowns at me, pulling the stick from her shoulder and leaning on it. When she doesn’t immediately answer, I realize the question might be in poor taste. Sure, Graham. Ask this abused little girl where she sleeps. Great socializing. 

“Never mind,” I sigh, “you don’t have to tell me. I shouldn’t have asked.” 

“Why?” is her response. 

The question throws me. I quirk the left side of my face, unprepared to answer. “Uh. I don’t know. I realized you might not want to tell me. It’s kind of a rude question. Probably not my business. I was just curious.” 

“Oh. Well, we share the basement room. It’s pretty big. It’s the Girls’ Only Clubhouse.” 

“I see,” I humor her. “I’ll try to remember that.” 

Meg looks over the rail at the work site; I lift the binoculars to join her.

Sue, wrapped in a thick plum-colored jacket, is pressing soil in around the base of a post with her work boot. They seem to have worked out whatever disagreement they were having without it coming to blows.

When I shift the lens to Hannibal, I see him bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees. At first I wonder if something is wrong -- his head is down, his ashy hair loose and obscuring his face -- but presently he straightens and stretches his neck. He’s only taking a breather. 

It reminds me of something Tanya said this morning — she asked him if he’d slept last night, her eyes on me as she spoke. He hadn’t. I watch him run a hand aggressively over his face, then return his attention to the stubborn post. 

“There’s not much time to sleep around here in the first place,” I mutter to Meg, thoughtful. “Too much to do. Cooking. Gardening. Killing revenants. Building chicken coops.” 

“Yeah,” the girl agrees. “But… Tanya says when the chicken house is up and the fence is fixed, we can have a movie night. That’ll be fun, then everybody can take a day off, and you can show me how to shoot.” 

I smile for a moment, giving her a nod to agree.

The smile fades fast. “Wait — what fence needs to be fixed, exactly?” 

“That one,” Meg says with a shrug, pointing straight ahead with her stick.

She’s indicating the wrought-iron border fence, seven or eight feet high and bolstered to nine or ten with the razor wire. My heart skips a beat as I look up and down the property line, looking for a flaw or a gap. “Where?” I murmur. 

“Next door. Can you see them? That’s why I’ve got the stick. In case they go up on the fence.” 

I sigh, relieved. Not our fence, then, but the one beyond it. I can’t see the revenants - I squint at the border and lift the binoculars, looking for shapes on the other side that might not be bushes or trees. 

It takes a few seconds of searching, but I do see movement in the adjacent yard: tawny blurs in the shade that, though mostly still, twitch and lurch unevenly at intervals. The discovery is startling; they aren’t more than fifteen or twenty feet from the fence line, and the longer I look the more of them I see. The forested back yard of the neighbor’s property is full of dead people. 

It turns the bright afternoon outing into something else entirely. I can’t believe I was asleep. 

Six, nine — I make out twelve of them beyond the fence. I’m sure there are actually more. Milling around absently, they don’t seem to have noticed Sue or Hannibal — otherwise they’d be clawing at the iron trying to get through. I think about the mob on the street yesterday; if as many turn up as we saw crowding around the car alarm, the fence might not hold up. 

“Wha—what happens when we start hammering? Aren’t they attracted to noise?” I rasp, still searching the shady border for blurred shapes.

Meg lifts up the stick and gives it a demonstrative forward thrust with the sharp end, as if that answers everything. 

I let the binoculars fall and sink backward into the chair. I don’t even have a rifle this time. 

“Don’t worry,” Meg chirps, butting the round end of her homemade spear into my shin playfully. “We’re super good at this stuff.”

—

_Super_ is a bit of an overstatement, but once the hammering starts I am able to relax a little. The noise isn't as bad as I expected, and the revenants next door behave, more or less.

Sue is a shy hammerer at first, tapping softly nine or ten times to sink a nail. Hannibal, looking haggard, eventually crowds her out to demonstrate: one strike to set the nail, a second strike to finish. Two firm hits, less noise overall. _Bang, BANG!_

Hannibal is skilled with hammers. The method also applies well to craniums; he manages not to demonstrate that one. 

The revenants are not indifferent to the noise; they twitch in place and make slow, halfhearted steps toward the fence in the shadow of the tree line. They accumulate there gradually, pressing up against it with arms outstretched through the bars. The fence holds without any issues and they continue their work, occasionally glancing to the side to monitor the size of the group.

When the throng of grasping limbs starts to build up, Meg leaves me alone to go poke at them through the bars with her spear, just as she demonstrated. She is far from skilled, but ever so often she pierces one in the head and it falls to the ground. It's enough to keep the pack thinned. 

As the platform goes up with no great threat from the revenants next door, I let my attention wander. I dig into the bag of jerky Hannibal left for me _(really -- what kind of jerky is this? Maybe I don’t need to know. It’s good,)_ and with nothing better to do I open the black journal to where I left off yesterday. 

_27 February 2017  
_ _Norfolk, VA  
_ _Elizabeth River_

_St. Helens Hospital is no more._

_Even disregarding the group of militants who demanded access to the semi-comfortable accommodations I carved out there for Will and myself, the supply of groceries and gasoline in Elizabeth City ran their course. The only constant in life is change; it was time._

_In any case, the combined voltage requirements of the water filtration system, refrigeration units and Will's life support were too much for the generators. I cooked a final meal down in the kitchens —_ coulotte _in red wine sauce,_ gratin dauphinois _and puff pastry — packed our necessities (not excluding my remaining 1kg butter and 3kg cheese,) and set out North in an ambulance._ _Not given to avarice, I donated some of the remaining gasoline to those who would see me out. I regret that the hospital’s structural integrity may have suffered._

_Unfortunately the ambulance quickly proved to be a poor means of transportation. The roads were entirely choked with disabled vehicles even outside of the city, and the sheer number of revenants stalking in groups across the countryside inspired awe more than anything else._

_I was witness to the macabre horror of a man torn to pieces after quite accidentally falling into a mob of them. It was not a sight soon to be forgotten. His arms and legs were wrenched entirely from their sockets in a gruesome reenactment of men quartered for high treason in the fourteenth century._

_In the first few moments following the dismemberment, his blood arched to the ground in four great crimson spurts -- a Fibonacci spiral mirrored twice, a rare and beautiful phenomenon to have been borne of such tragedy. God save his soul. -- At the risk of sounding insensitive I should have liked to know his blood pressure reading._ _God alone knows, but I think the arcs were truly Golden, given the life they cost. In any case, I hope He is pleased._

_The man could not have suffered long; t_ _he grisly death culminated as dirty and dead hands pulled apart his skin and musculature before my eyes -- red flesh to red lips, red organs to red lips._ _Revenants have poorer table manners than piranha, but a large enough group of them is just as fast._ _In minutes there was little left of the man beyond a great red spot on the ground below, the only monument by which to remember him._

_Perhaps -- on a broader scale -- humanity is now painting its final self-portrait on the earth. Is it what our species earned for itself?_

_I digress. Keen on avoiding a similar fate for as long as possible, I brought Will back to the city outskirts to formulate a new plan. There I was pleased to reunite with an old friend, a woman whose survival in this dire new world is fortunate, but hardly surprising. She had been looking for me ever since the world ended._

_Chiyoh, being very practical and self-sufficient, suggested the river as an alternative to the road. Though water travel has long disagreed with my constitution, pragmatism won out; we proceeded North on the_ Dogwood _the same day. My renderings attached._

_It may take another week to get as far north up the Chesapeake as Washington, D.C. — the first of several locations where I have business — but there are no revenants on the water, the weather has been mild, and the_ Dogwood _is amply fueled for both refrigeration, heat, and Will’s medical needs. It is also fetching to look at, though my stomach disagrees. The boat does make a compelling case for solar power; we should utilize it in the times ahead. (Preferably on land!)_

_Chiyoh has ironclad opinions on how we should proceed in the long term. We have spoken at length about our personal priorities and agreed to support each other’s goals. Chiyoh advocates for finding and preserving livestock, not only to support ourselves but as a means of bartering should we need it. I find I cannot fault her logic (milk and cheese are two things I hold dear,) and we also agree that food security is of tantamount importance._

_My own designs are less pragmatic. I have sworn myself to care for my friend, whose condition requires close attention, regular medication and no small quantum of environmental stability. Beyond that I feel if mankind is to survive extinction in the fog of the new world — much less thrive in it — we must retain what our forebears took pains to discover and create. For this reason I am charitably compelled to preserve any writings and art of historical significance that I can locate._

_I sincerely hope that some of these treasures are better accessed by land. A gruesome send-off by the undead, mathematical or otherwise, is becoming an appealing alternative to this seasickness._

_— H.L._

  
  


_Oh, boo-hoo_ , I think, closing the journal and squinting out at the yard.

Charitable Art Pirate Bluebeard himself is standing atop the platform, which is now complete with a plywood cap -- our goal point for the afternoon, in fact, at least until the others return. Curiously, Hannibal is waving with both hands in the direction of the fence, arms wide.

Frowning, I set the journal aside and pick up the binoculars to take a closer look. 

Sue is with Meg, having joined in at the fence line with a second stick. Both of them stab in unison through the bars of the fence. Occasionally one of them trips backward and regroups, but they are stalwart in their work. Aggressive, even.

There seem to be a lot more of the revenants than when I looked last.

They line the fence almost from the rear property line, grouped thicker at the spot closest to the construction. Under the shade of the trees, a great undulating brown mass of them writhe against the iron, arms reaching out and up to grasp at anything they can. They are five, six of them deep at the center point, maybe sixty of them or more in total. 

_...Dirty and dead hands pulled apart his skin_.

I shudder and look for Hannibal again, but he’s gone from the platform now. I don't see him anywhere in the yard, but in the next moment a shrill whistle cuts across the space -- a warning. 

Sue and Meg turn, looking toward me and the house. They freeze, stilled by something I can't see. They lower their pikes in unison and back away slowly from the fence line. 

Something’s coming.

I can’t see it, but they do. Something to do with the revenants -- or the fence. The girls turn away from the writhing wall and break into a run, disappearing beneath the edge of the deck. I watch through the binoculars and listen carefully for the slam of the basement door below me, but if it happens, I don’t hear it. 

The panel closest to the construction site jerks in place under the force of pressure, groaning at its joints. I inferred correctly; it’s failing. They let the crowd grow too large. 

My lips part into a grimace; all I can do is watch. The center panel heaves once, twice, then collapses inward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal's journal is fun to write.  
> Thank you for riding out the slow burn. Things are picking up faster now.  
> Next up... Will really needs a bath; Hannibal juggles a variety of urges.  
> -DA


	14. Fortress

It’s less like watching a dam burst and more like watching a nor’easter roll in. A slow invasion. 

The first few handfuls of revenants spill to the ground atop the fence panel, pushed by those behind them. Those that don’t fall amble awkwardly over the struggling bodies of the others, stumbling, correcting, and spreading in every direction through the new gap in the fence. 

The yard is silent. I can only assume that the others made it inside safely; without a clear target to draw them, the revenants spread in all directions. Some shamble across garden rows, dragging through straw and vegetation. Others head toward the construction site as if looking for the source of the noise that originally caught their interest. 

I’m still watching the shuffling mob, jaw half open, when the porch door slides open. Hannibal, Sue and Meg line up at the rail next to me to watch the slow-motion train wreck as the creatures shuffle across the yard. 

“I can’t believe it,” Sue drawls, shaking her head. “Can’t believe it. Look at 'em. The whole thing just -- Oh, Lord Almighty.” She turns to me. “Did you see it up here?” 

“I saw it.” 

“There’s dozens. Oh, we’re stuck. _They’re_ stuck! We can’t even shoot them, the noise--” 

Hannibal clasps Sue’s shoulder with a firm hand. She blinks up at him, surprised, and when he has her full attention he touches a finger to his lips. _Shh_. 

When she nods, he releases her. He's right; better to make no noise for now at least not outside. 

We join Bree in the sitting room and shut the porch door before any of us speak again. “The _whole_ outside?” Bree confirms, stretching her neck to try and see from the window. “Well. So much for getting the coop up today. Everybody all right?” 

The three of them nod. 

“Arrows!” Sue exclaims, snapping her fingers. “No noise with those. We’ll pick them off from the porch. Hannibal, do we--” 

She’s too late; Hannibal is already walking out of the door to the foyer, leaving no instruction behind. Sue sighs, her weathered face furrowing. “Ugh, now he’s off doing something. Oh, how are the girls even going to get back inside when they get home? The front yard's plum connected to the back one.” 

“They can get back in the same way they go on runs,” Bree reassures her, “By being fast and careful. Don’t worry, Sue, we’ll tip them off before they get too close. It’s not the end of the world, baby. ...Well, I say ‘not the end of the world’ --” 

“The car alarm,” I mutter, realizing. The women turn their attention to me. “Simple. Open the front gate across the driveway. Turn the alarm on. If that’s where the noise is coming from, they’ll leave the yard and head toward it.” 

“Yeah, them and every other creepy-crawly within earshot,” Sue snaps, distraught. “And how will the girls get back inside with the street all full of them? They’re coming _from the street_.” 

“Carefully. We get them inside before setting off the alarm.” I shake my head. “I’m with Bree. If we’re quiet we’re safe inside. Hannibal will agree unless he knows something we don’t. Ask him.”

Bree and Sue share a look and nod in dissatisfied agreement. Meg skips out to the foyer to do just that, clearly delighted by the developments. Of course she is -- with construction halted it’s an excellent opportunity for me to teach her how to shoot. I run a hand over my face. 

Bree gestures for Sue to join her on the sofa, where she wraps an arm around the older woman. “We’re strong,” she reminds Sue. At least ten years her junior, her consoling contains all the warmth of an older sister. “We’re survivors. We got lots of food. We got lots of weapons. We got each other and we got God. Everybody is okay and everybody’s gonna stay okay. Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Sue pouts.  
  
“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe. Safe in our tower here too.” 

Restless and not in particular need of a youth group encounter, I sigh in the direction of the foyer and wonder what Hannibal and the kid are doing. Tanya and Chiyoh have been gone for hours. They could roll up at any time with a truckload of building supplies, and it’s better if they’re not surprised -- but I get that there’s little I can do. Par the course. 

I reopen Hannibal’s journal, hoping to distract myself with it. Better than twiddling my thumbs. Besides, there’s always the chance that there’s something useful in there -- he wouldn’t have me reading it otherwise. I’m still curious how we ended up in Charlottesville.

_6 March 2017  
_ _Washington, DC_

_America’s pride and joy has auto-cannibalized since I was here last. I never found the District to be a particularly attractive city, not compared to Paris or Florence or even Baltimore -- though it does house several attractive jewels. It may still hold them, but parts of Washington are currently on fire as we dock off the National Harbor. It appears that Chiyoh and I are not the only ones with business here. Interesting._

_(I write_ jewels _metaphorically as well as literally: while I will check in on the Hope Diamond, I won’t be surprised to find some crude opportunist has already collected it. The Da Vinci housed in the National Gallery, on the other hand… )_

...Yes. Very useful, Hannibal. 

I skip several pages ahead. I’ve already seen the paintings and I don’t need to read about any more _accidental beautiful_ dismemberments he _bore witness to_ over the last ten months. I can always go back if I need to.

I immediately regret the decision. As soon as I abandon the self-aggrandizing narrative of his looting spree, the paper and ink change and the dates stop altogether. Rather than journal entries, I’m met with pages upon pages of drawings and cramped mathematical equations that have no meaning to me. 

My instinct is to keep skipping ahead to find where and when the journals pick back up, but the investigator in me is drawn to the messages that aren’t in writing. Coffee stains on the paper. Wrinkled pages. Deep, emotional impressions from the pen. Not like Hannibal at all. None of it is, really. The whole thing should be gilded and bound in tooled leather. 

They start as pages blocked with well-ordered lines of numbers, a few geometric diagrams. They devolve in a troubling way over a long section into more emotional scribbles. I glaze over the equations themselves and look for any actual words that might explain what is going on. 

I stop when I see my name nestled in amongst the numbers. I’ve been reading it as a diary, not a letter. 

I hope his asking me is rhetorical, because I am the wrong person to consult on… whatever this is. I reread the page and look over the scribbled diagrams again, but it doesn’t help. As I continue to seek out the English, I find: 

_Upon what plane to do we refract? I have seen it.  
_ _FG = Sphere (Time? Ecclesiastes 1:9) Substance hard to define, but_ _it makes a rapturous noise.  
_ _Huygens’ ethereal matter turned out to be the absence of matter. This refraction is the result of something so ethereal to us as that absence of medium Christiaan tried so nobly to define.  
_ _I can not measure us and it maddens me._

Is this a mathematical equation attempting to quantify our fucked-up relationship? 

I run a finger over the word _Ecclesiastes_ and look up. Old Testament, if I’m not mistaken. Across the room, Bree is distracting Sue by showing her something in the heavy anatomy textbook in her lap. 

“Bree,” I clear my throat. “You’re familiar with the Bible, I take it?” 

The woman meets my eyes with a slow smile, playfully condescending. “I think I’ve heard of it once or twice,” she grins. “My mother would have told you 'no.' But since we're here, what do you want to know?” 

“Ecclesiastes 1:9. Are you familiar with that verse?” 

Bree chuckles secretively. It's a rich sound. “Nothing new under the sun. Is that his journal? Strange man, isn’t he -- Hannibal. So quiet and so full of information. He knows the good book just as well as I do, you can tell by how he writes. But he sure doesn’t like hearing me talk about God. He's polite about it, but I can tell. I think the disaster rocked a lot of people’s faith.” 

I have a feeling neither Bree nor Hannibal’s faith have been rocked in the slightest. I don't engage her on it. “He made a reference to that passage, I was just curious what passage it is, if you know it. Or if you have a Bible, maybe I could--” 

“Oh, I know it. In fact, I already told you: _nothing new under the sun_.” She looks up to the ceiling and recites. “ _What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again, there is nothing new under the sun_. Solomon. -- The bigger idea is that the ups and downs of life will always come and go, but they aren’t what bring about happiness and peace; you get that from God.”

Hannibal doesn’t. I look at the notes again. It still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. A plane, maybe a sphere, of unknown substance; it makes a noise and has something to do with the two of us. Could he be talking about that invisible edge?

“Thanks,” I mumble, flipping forward in the journal. “You don’t know anything about physics, do you?” 

She just chuckles again. “Let me know if you want to borrow my Bible."

I move on. 

The drawings interspersed randomly amongst the equations hold more meaning than the math. There is a sketch of a ship at dock, a decent-sized pleasure yacht that I take to be the _Dogwood_. On the next page it’s me again, dead to the world, my hair grown out. 

The drawing depicts a long, crooked scar along the right side of my face, and absently I reach up to touch my cheek. I feel the raised skin there, but not my fingers. Eventually I’ll have to look in a mirror; the prospect is not exciting. 

Another page depicts the skyline of the U.S. Capitol, grey charcoal shrouding the city in smoke. Half of the iconic Washington Monument obelisk is missing, leaving only a jagged square pillar there to loom over the rotunda of the Capitol building. 

Evidently he gets his hands on a polaroid camera around this time. Pasted to heavier paper are a series of images I would expect: a hall full of revenants, their eyes reflecting red as they gape at the camera. Several close-up shots. These creatures, like in Hannibal’s early drawings, look healthier than the ones I’ve seen -- less decomposition. Their eyes have the same dull sheen, the same empty hunger. 

A city street, empty except for litter and four or five abandoned cars. One particularly disturbing photograph from a car or bus window shows a group of revenants on a road, maybe a highway. The mass is large enough to place the ones outside now into perspective; these blend into one large black swarm stretching into the distance— hundreds, if not thousands. 

Dark and high-contrast, there is a picture of me in a hospital bed to go along with his drawing. Hannibal flatters me with his pencil; I look terrible. Practically dead. The scar looks worse in saturated color, my cheeks are hollow, and my skin is pale from a month in bed. I may as well be a revenant myself. 

Chiyoh, also pictured, doesn’t look much better. She’s photographed sitting on the floor of what might be the interior of the boat. Not exactly plump to begin with, she looks borderline emaciated. Her hair is flat and untended and she stares back at the camera like a war refugee. 

There’s no photograph of Hannibal; shame. I’d have liked to see him equally disheveled, if that were ever even the case. If there was one, he probably would have burned it. 

Following the picture of Chiyoh, the journal finally picks up. It’s different paper, cleaner paper, different pen. Neat, cramped handwriting, but not Hannibal’s. It’s four short entries at once, only a few lines each, neatly dated _30 Mar, 4 Apr, 6 Apr, 10 Apr_. 

Unfortunately for me, the writing is in Japanese. 

Useful. 

Hannibal returns with Meg, still looking pleased. I’m glad enough to put the journal down. 

“What are we doing? What’s the plan?” Sue pipes up immediately, still sounding nervous.

Hannibal’s hands are full -- inconvenient for writing notes. Instead of trying to answer he nudges the foyer door closed with his foot. There is a long brown package cradled in each of his arms, each about the size and shape of a loaf of bread. They look heavy, wrapped in butcher paper. I have no doubts about what’s inside or where they came from. 

Meg provides a close enough explanation. “He went outside and opened the gate and put a note on the garage.” She looks disappointed. “I didn’t see any creepers in the front yard when I looked. It’s probably okay.” 

“They’ll get there eventually,” Sue insists. “When they blip the car, we'll check again and run out if we have to. Do we have many arrows? There must be a hundred of them out there.”

“Eh. Eighty, at most,” I correct her. I look at the porch. “Suppose more could wander in.” 

Bree's voice is bordering on patronizing, but at least she is patient. “There’s not enough arrows to be shooting them off at random. Will’s idea with the alarm could clear out most of them, Tanya can hit a good number with the arrows we have, and the rest... we hack at them while we fix the fence. It has to be tomorrow, all of us together. Other than all that, there’s not much to do apart from see that the girls get back inside safely.” 

I suddenly wish I’d met Bree first.

Sue nods unhappily. She stands up with some effort, bending to collect her lighter and cigarettes from the coffee table. “If y’all are sure,” she sighs, turning toward the sliding glass door. 

Bree straightens and leans forward on the couch. “Uh -- I know you’re not going outside to smoke right now,” she calls at Sue’s back. 

Sue pauses. The risk of being outdoors, even up on the porch, hasn’t occurred to her. “I’ll be quiet as a church mouse,” she assures us, shaking her little box. “Trust me. I won’t so much as look over the edge. Couldn't stand to.” 

The three of us watch in incredulous silence as she slips out, closing the door behind her softly. As promised, she huddles near the windows as she lights up. 

We watch her for a minute, none of us sure what to say. When we look at Hannibal, he hasn’t so much as blinked. His small smile is frozen in place; mask glitch. 

“What do you think, Doc?” Bree says, bringing us back to our situation. “Did we miss anything in our plan?” 

The mask corrects and resets with small adjustments -- a renewed smile, his shoulders squaring, the lines on his forehead softening. Miles away from being concerned about the yard, Hannibal gestures with the two packages in his arms -- “the venison” -- winks, and departs abruptly for the kitchen.

“Oh, cook dinner,” I sigh. “Could have seen that one coming.” 

\--

Chiyoh and Tanya’s arrival, signified by the triple beep of the car alarm, engages a flurry of commotion for the ambulatory members of the household. Meg, Sue and Hannibal disappear into the foyer-cum-armory, leaving Bree and I to stare at the door in silence and wait. We are comforted and discomforted respectively by the rich scents of slow-roasting meat that reach us from the kitchen.

After several long minutes, Tanya’s voice carries through. My reading buddy and I sigh and nod to each other. 

The animated discussion that takes place in the foyer is slightly too remote to follow; I can only glean that nobody was injured and Tanya is particularly upset. When the group of them makes it as far as the living room, I see she has a large shopping bag in each hand. Hopefully it's full of galvanized nails and silicone caulk.

She surveys our cozy reading party contemptuously and follows Hannibal to the kitchen without comment. 

Chiyoh doesn’t have a lot to say, either — nothing new there. She looks haggard as she takes off her jacket and surveys for a place to sit down. A long morning hefting construction supplies, being called _Chee_ , and then bad news upon arrival home. I huff to myself, unsympathetic. 

With Sue and Meg rattling off the afternoon's events to Chiyoh, I decide that the room now has too many people in it. Securing the journal at my side, I grip the wheels with weak hands and work to turn myself toward the hall. 

Hannibal has ignored me for long enough today, and selfishly I don’t want him and Tanya alone. It’s high time I saw the kitchen, anyway. 

Sue perks up, her motherly instincts kicking in at the sight of me floundering with the wheels of the chair. “Where are we going, baby?” She wants to know, stepping around behind me to take hold of it. 

I prickle. “Please. I’m fine.” I hold up a hand. “Please.” 

Working the chair is a nightmare and she’s not the most irritating person on the premises, so it feels dirty to give her the cold shoulder -- but I really need to be on my own. Quiet behind me, Sue hesitates and then sits back down without comment.

I pretend not to feel her watching my back as I inch my way out of the room. 

—

  
  


The kitchen is the second door on the right, across the hall from the dining room. When I reach it, I take a break. Better put, I tell myself it’s a break. It's not: from this spot I can clearly hear the one-sided conversation going on within. The technical term is eavesdropping. 

Tanya sounds genuinely pained. “--stupid. So stupid. I’m sorry. No! I’m really sorry! ...You can’t change my mind by smiling at me like that. I’m mortified.” 

I can hear the smile breaking through in her own voice. It makes my molars grind -- just the thought of her smiling.

“…I’ll make up for it. I’ll sit on the porch until dinner and knock some out with the bow. The old storefront was right there across from the warehouse; we kept seeing it while we were shoving wire into the truck and freezing our tits off. I thought — hey, it’s getting colder out. I own two shirts and a hoodie — and we were ahead of time, for all we knew. I’ve looked like a drowned rat for most of the year, right? ...Look at you. You’re too polite to agree.”

Slightly nauseated, I hunch forward to hear better. The storefront? 

A rustling joins her voice. “It wasn’t totally selfish. Got this one for you. Thought you would like it -- cashmere. Big handfuls of underwear for all our sorry butts. Shoes for Meg. Oh, this one is for Will.” 

I seethe at the sound of my name in Tanya’s mouth. 

She has got to be — she was shopping? She was picking out clothes? Hell knows I am no master of tact, but I am overwhelmed by the urge to strangle her. Clothes.

With two more people working the fence line sooner, none of this would have happened. Someone could have died. Meg could have died. Tanya is actually showing off her retail therapy to him -- like a neglected housewife with nothing in the world better to do. 

I stare at the kitchen door, fingers twitching against the wheels of my chair. _Don’t_ , I tell myself, biting my tongue until it hurts.

In my head, a curtain of blood spills from Tanya’s throat, her perpetually-irritated face marred with surprise. Hannibal cups her chin from behind, opening up her arteries. _He bluffed this morning,_ I think. _He won’t bluff twice._

Then, darkly: _It wouldn’t be that great of a loss._

She continues, chipper, casual. “He’s drowning in that blue one. I just saw this and stuffed it in the bag. We weren’t there long. I thought you might want to give it to him.”

How considerate of her. There’s a pause. “What? _Me?_ Uh. Sure, sure, it’s just -- Will and I aren’t -- we’re having trouble seeing eye-to-eye, y’know, so… All right, if you think so.”

_She’s young. She’s dumb. It’s fine. Hannibal seems to like her. No-one is dead. It’s fine._ When I think I’ve got my temper under reasonable control, I take a deep breath and roll forward into the kitchen.

The space is large and clean, nothing as sophisticated as the one in Baltimore. Like other rooms of the house, it has old bones and new upgrades. It's well-stocked, bowls full of produce on the counters and industrial-sized bags of staples lining the wall. Rather than showcasing any delicate works of art, the kitchen’s only decor boils down to a vertical herb planter across from the windows and a kitschy plaque on the far wall, certainly from the prior owners, that proclaims “Many Have Eaten Here - Few Have Died!” 

Hannibal’s attention is currently turned away from the saucepan on the range before him and onto Tanya, who fidgets coyly in place less than a foot away from him. The bags of clothes are forgotten on the island. 

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Tanya murmurs to him, eyes down, “ever since, uh --” 

“Hi,” I interrupt, louder than necessary.

Tanya blinks at me uneasily, biting off whatever it was. I’m glad looks can’t kill. She turns to me, crossing her arms, and settles her jaw. For a second she's quiet -- trying to _think._ Endearing.

She clears her throat, finding a little bit of nerve along the way. "Sorry, Will," she says evenly, "could you please give the two of us a moment alone?" 

_You're getting bolder,_ I think. _Also: no._

"Oh, I'm sorry," I smile, "I didn't mean to interrupt. I'd leave you to it, it's just --" I make a face, pat the right wheel of the chair. "--My arms are really _very_ tired."

We stare at each other, bright-eyed.

Tanya flicks her eyes over to Hannibal as though he's the referee. Head of household, perhaps, but he's a born spectator. Deeply invested, Hannibal is absently poking at his sauce without looking at it. He doesn't indicate a winning side. 

He doesn't have to. I smile at Tanya again. With tight shoulders she quickly collects her bags, mumbling "We'll talk later,” to him as she brushes past us into the hall.

I don’t ask her about whatever it was that she picked out for me. 

Hannibal’s mouth twitches into a slightly suppressed smile when she’s gone. Well entertained, he turns his attention back to the range to better tend his pan. I eek the wheelchair over toward the island. My arms do hurt, actually.

Here comes the delicate part. "She's adorable," I drawl dryly, looking around the room with feigned disinterest. "She's lucky no one died. Did you catch that spunk, there, for a second?" I chuckle. "I think she's growing on me. I can't help but wonder what's she doing to you." 

I may be fooling myself, but it seems to grab his attention for a second. He doesn't quite look up from the pan, but his head turns slightly in my direction. 

“You seem generally pleased today,” I continue, changing the subject. I keep my voice low, eyeing the hall. “The wrong things bother you. Fence comes down? Oh well. Girls in danger? Meh. Sue opens her mouth, though… hm.

"You realize it's going to be mainly you fixing the fence, right? Or slashing up corpses with your Samurai sword, or both. Though I guess that might constitute a good time in your book." 

Hannibal doesn’t move to reply, not that I expect him to. I look around the kitchen again, taking in the modest range, the standard refrigerator, and the single oven (roast coming along well). Aside from the meal, it could be any out of three hundred million kitchens across the country.

“Why did you choose this place?" I ask, distancing the conversation further. "This house, this area. These people. There are other places with fences. You could have moved into the Smithsonian building, saved yourself time hauling art around. I imagine any surviving curators would make for higher-brow dinner conversation, too.”

He surprises me by setting down his spatula and picking up a pen. The note he hands me is clipped; it makes no mention of Tanya or things that do and do not bother him: 

_Chiyoh shared decision.  
_ _Adjacent to mountains.  
_ _4/6 homes on the street have solar grids, incl. this one._  
 _3 wine cellars._  
 _Rainwater recycling._  
 _River and farmland < 1mi. Jefferson estate, 5mi._  
 _Roommate pool has dwindled considerably._

I’m not expecting such a practical answer. I take it at face value, though I wonder which criteria were his and which were Chiyoh's. Tacked on incongruously at the bottom of the paper, he’s added: _Would you like a bath?_

I huff out a chuckle as I notice the postscript, deciding I’ll allow the abrupt change of topic. “...I smell that bad, huh?” 

The playfully horrified expression he give me says enough. Despite myself, I smile. 

“All right, if I must. Just -- please. I don’t want Tanya's help. Anybody else. Chiyoh." I chuckle again, almost amused by the thought of either woman drowning me in six inches of bathwater. "You know what, just throw me in the bathtub. I’ll figure it out.”


	15. Bath, Time

When Hannibal’s sauce is finished he polishes off a cup of coffee, leaves a note with the ladies in the living room and carries me back upstairs. 

He hands me something before he picks me up. Wrapped in wax paper, it's cold from the freezer, roundish, softball-sized. I stare at it on the way up the stairs, one arm around Hannibal’s neck -- it’s less awkward than staring at his jaw. 

After setting me on the edge of his bed he gingerly takes the package back. It’s not worth asking about it -- not with his hand bothering him, not given the brevity of his last note. He leaves me alone to consider Saint Sebastian again as he disappears into the en suite bathroom.

The sound of running water surges and drowns out the clack of the clock under the painting, a relief. I’ve been trying to place the feeling all these clocks are giving me — there’s one in nearly every room. It’s a Hannibal sound; it plays when I visit him in my head, too. 

It’s the waiting room to his office, I finally decide; another room of his that had a clock in it. That room had its own significance -- still has, in my mind palace. It was a place _of Hannibal_ that never actually had him in it. I sat there, or paced there, in furious and anxious anticipation years ago -- at least once a week. It was the room where the maelstrom crashed around me before he broke it by opening his office door. 

The thought of that opening door leads me to an overwhelming longing to just talk _with_ him again. To lean in to the metaphorical, let him open me up like a book -- even if he keeps turning me back to my darkest pages at every juncture. I can read half of his thoughts from his face, imagine the words, but he can’t ask me the questions that turn my pages. 

Again, why is that? I’m beginning to seriously doubt I will come across a journal entry that says “Decided speaking is too convenient and self-serving. Giving something else a try.” It isn’t a physiological problem he’s having, or else I wouldn’t keep catching him opening his mouth to try to do it. 

He’s been — traumatized, somehow. 

But trauma impacts us emotionally and his emotions do not operate like anyone else’s. What traumatizes someone who delights in trauma, even his own? 

I sigh. It's uncomfortable, seeing that indication of vulnerability in him. I am malleable to the vulnerability of others, one of the few remaining ways empathy can get the better of me. And Hannibal is not a man to be pitied; in fact, pity toward him could be lethal. 

I clear my throat and start fumbling my way out of my oversized sweater. 

When he returns his hands are full. He stops in front of me and opens one hand to reveal two small, white pills. They sit innocuously the center of his palm; a glass of water waits in his other hand. He extends the pills to me expectantly. 

Another test? My instinct is to decline outright — why on earth wouldn’t I? — but I am not exactly swimming in agency, and as long as I avoid betraying him or demonstrating dangerous pangs of pity I don’t feel I’m in any immediate danger.

I pick the pills up with only a little hesitation. “What is it?” I ask him as I take the glass. 

The question feels fair, though he might interpret it as a lack of trust. To meet him in the middle I hold the pills halfway to my mouth as I wait for the answer: _I’ll take it, just tell me._

Hannibal doesn’t produce a bottle or take out his notepad; instead he lifts an eyebrow and lowers his chin, admonishing. When I refuse to be cowed, he cocks his head to the side.

“I’m _just_ asking,” I say gently. “You know I hate benzodiazepines. We talked about it at length once.” 

The annoyed tic under his eye and the little huff of air he lets out tells me my guess is correct. I sigh. I knew these pills looked familiar, foisted upon me by every psychiatrist I’ve ever had the bad fortune of speaking to, him included. Anti-anxiety drugs aren’t my friends. 

...And yet. “Fine. Fine,” I huff as Hannibal’s shoulders start to hike in frustration. “I’ll take _one_. What the hell, it’s the apocalypse. It’s just my brain. What do I need that to work for? ...Christ.” 

I throw my head back and swallow one with a sip of water. He takes the second one back without argument, blinking at me curiously. Then, to my surprise, he pops it into his own mouth and reaches for the glass in my hand. 

“Oh,” is all I can say. “...Okay.” 

He smiles, raising the glass in mock toast before washing down the pill. He returns to the bathroom. 

_Great,_ I think, _it’s a party._

I struggle out of my shirt and shoes unattended, dejectedly considering the rest and the maneuvering it will require to get out of them. When the water shuts off and Hannibal returns, sleeves rolled to the elbow, I sigh. 

“So when I said ‘throw me in the bathtub’…”

He chuckles soundlessly, his smile genuine. He helps me out of my pants. 

The initial discomfort on behalf of my modesty passes quickly. Have I ever _not_ been naked, metaphorically at least, when I'm around him? Hannibal is as respectful and clinical as always as he sets my underwear aside and leans in to help me up. 

The door to the bathroom is too narrow to be carried in there like a blushing bride; he supports me at his side instead, carrying the bulk of my weight with one arm clasped firmly around my waist. We move slowly enough that I can practice weightless steps and pretend I am walking myself. Oddly enough, it helps me feel better. 

I do miss a step when we actually get to the room. 

I’ve seen it already -- nicely renovated, separate bath and shower -- but it didn't look like this before. The main lights are off, leaving only four tapered candlesticks to illuminate the facilities. Two sit along the ledge of the deep soaking tub in the corner, one flickers aesthetically by the double sinks, and one’s on the floor.

An unassuming citrus scent prevails, not overpowering. A potpourri, maybe, not a spray. There’s steam coming up from the water. The only things missing are some scattered rose petals and a Barry White recording.

“This is -- nice,” I mumble idly, earnest but uncomfortable. I almost say “romantic,” but catch myself at the last second. Romantic for him is sculpting a heart out of human remains. This meets my definition, sure, but it’s possible this is Hannibal’s typical Thursday night routine for himself. 

...Somehow I still doubt it. 

He helps me into the bathtub, picking up each of my legs in turn when I find I can’t lift them all the way. The surface of the water ripples and flashes reflections of the candlelight as I wobble around in it like a newborn deer. 

I grimace as he lowers me slowly, arms around my chest. The water’s hot, a little too hot, but I bite my tongue. Heat is apparently a luxury; I may regret complaining later. It stings, but the muscles it touches relax almost immediately. 

Hannibal sets me down gingerly and regards me in the water for a moment. I’m trembling a little, the scalding hot water making the exposed parts of me cold. By contrast to my frailty, Hannibal looks like the picture of health from below. Angular. Alert. Hale. The dim lighting gives him a foreboding presence. 

He reaches out with a finger and pokes it into my forehead. 

I jerk, surprised -- until I gather that he wants me to lie back in the water. Awkwardly grabbing at the sides of the tub, I let him push me into a recline. The sudden repositioning makes tumultuous waves that slap my chest and the ceramic around me. 

I feel pretty pitiful lying there, but the water sooths as it stills. Gradually my skin stops singing alarm from the heat. “Thanks,” I mumble wetly, still shaking a little. “Is there any soap?” 

Ignoring me, Hannibal turns to putter by the sinks, reflected ominously in the his-and-hers mirrors. I track him around the bathroom with my eyes half closed as he opens cabinets, rustles paper, and scratches with a pen. 

The candles are _a lot_ , I decide as I sink lower into the water. A _romantic lot_. It's not a valentine written in blood, but this is him inviting me to something. 

...it is _nice,_ though.

That pill is definitely kicking in now. I don’t really care how romantic it is. He is a romantic man. 

Why am I smiling, exactly? 

Hannibal kneels by the edge of the tub to sprinkle a handful of salts in, and as he does he sets something on the shadowy tile ledge of the bath: a piece of paper weighted down with a ball. It’s just barely out of arm’s reach, placed intentionally so that I’ll have to move to get it. _Rude_. 

He smiles, rests his hand on my shoulder a moment, then stands up and leaves. 

Alone and with the water stilling around me, I feel like a boat on a calm lake. My thin knees, protruding, cast twin shadows on the water’s surface, two little islands. I’m reflected in the water, nothing more than a dark shadow outlined with candlelight, but I can recognize my nose and the unkempt mess on my head. 

_Baths are amazing,_ I think, feeling slow. The smell is amazing. Bright notes, uplifting, refreshing. The candles are fantastic, too, come to think of it. _What was I so worried about?_

I’m curious about the note, even if I do have to sit up to get it. I set the placid sea around me to storm by struggling to the side to reach out for it. It’s not particularly easy on my nonexistent abs, but I get there eventually. 

It’s not a ball holding the note in place; it’s an orange. I slip as I’m reaching for the note and send it rolling into the water; it’s cold to the touch. Fresh from the freezer. 

_My kingdom for an orange_ , he wrote ten months ago. I wonder what this one cost as I watch it bob in the water near my knees. 

The note underneath it is only three words: _Relax for now._ My lips quirk as I read it. He doesn’t need to tell me twice; the stupid pill isn’t giving me much of a choice. I pitch the paper over the side of the tub and lean back, sinking in up to my nose. The orange bounces off my thigh; cool, but warming quickly. 

Music carries in from the bedroom, beginning with slow singular string notes punctuated by simple discordant pairs. A harp, or something plucked. Harpsichord? No. Mandolin, perhaps. The song sounds Eastern, probably Japanese based on what I know about Hannibal. It's not a recording. I picture him seated on the bed, neck bent studiously over the instrument. 

I let my eyelids flutter almost closed. I don’t really care what instrument it is, how well it’s being played. I can simply enjoy the sound without investigating it. Relaxing for now, right?

The song is so tranquil and simple that I don’t immediately notice when it ends. A stirring in the room makes me crack open my eyes; I find Hannibal kneeling back by the edge of the tub with a handful of small bottles. 

“It’s nice,” I tell him, my voice cracking drowsily. "Nice song. Thanks." 

The candlelight dances in his eyes. They're half-closed, like mine, but he doesn't look any more or less drowsy than he has all day. Hannibal fishes the orange out of the water and inspects it, then puts it to his nose and inhales deeply. His eyes drift the rest of the way closed. 

“Don’t tell me that’s the last good orange north of Georgia and I dropped it in my bath water,” I mumble, watching him. “I’m — a little out of it. Sorry.” 

In reply he presses his thumbs into the top of the fruit and pulls, peeling away the skin. Drops of juice slip around the side of his hand, catching the candlelight in small slivers before dripping into the water over me. 

I watch his hands work apart the fruit, only realizing belatedly that my mouth is hanging open. Catching my gaze, his lips twitch in humor as he holds the first slice out for me. 

My body is as dumb as my head and my muscles hurt, but I will my arm up to take the fruit. It’s on the squishy side. I wait until he peels off a piece for himself, lay the slice on my tongue, and draw it in to my mouth at the same time he does. 

_which one of us is you and which one is me?_ A voice inside my head wonders. 

A question immediately answered: right as I am giving the orange a six out of ten in my mind, Hannibal pulls a sour face and reels away as if physically pained. For a second I think he is. 

_Ha. That’s right_ , I think, unable to control a sudden and unexpected bubble of laughter. _I’m the one with lower standards for my fruit._

I watch him think his way through the most polite method of dealing with an unpalatable taste. Spit it out? Swallow it quickly? Unable to stop chuckling at his expense, my laughter sends ripples of water up and down the length of the tub. _Seven out of ten, maybe._ Not bad for a ten-month-old orange. 

Hannibal mans up and decides to swallow it. When he moves to stand and discard the rest I catch him lightly by the wrist. “No, I’ll eat it,” I grin, “I don’t care. Don’t waste it.” 

He shakes his head dismissively and sets the offending fruit on the countertop, still wincing and running his tongue over his teeth as though to wipe away the taste. It’s gauche and mundane; I laugh again, softer this time. 

He finds my face as he rinses citrus off his hands in the water, his eyes moving in quick little flickers like he is calculating something written on me. Beyond this, his expression is unreadable. 

“I miss you,” I tell him plainly. "Us." 

There’s something there now, a little note of strain by the eyes, a tightening around his lips. He covers for it with a small smile, one that nearly looks honest. 

Struggling with something invisible to me, he fishes my hand out of the water and holds it between both of his. He stares at our hands, then moves his eyes back to my face. He inhales deeply.

_I could just about grab his shirt from here,_ I think; _even if I’m not strong enough to pull him, he’ll lean in closer if I guide him._

_I’d tilt my head to the right._

I don’t realize what the thought _is_ for a second. My body figures it out first; specifically my dick. There’s the distinctive rush of blood, a happy swell of warmth under the almost-privacy of the water’s surface.

Oh. Shit. I want to kiss him. 

That is the word for that particular urge. 

The bath, or maybe the drugs, are enough to keep the panic at bay -- or maybe I've just been expecting this to happen for a while. I can’t very well lie to myself about what my body is doing. Though I’m a little surprised with myself, I’m also aware that the only thing _wrong_ about a sudden homoerotic impulse is the fact that it’s _Hannibal Lecter_ causing it. 

We’re already past the point of confusing ourselves for each other; this is either the logical next step or one that we missed somewhere along the line. _Maybe_ , I think, trying to will the erection away, _it’s just a fluke_. Like back in high school. A lonely heart’s reaction to a moment of much-needed intimacy. 

A fluke, maybe. But there it is, right between my legs. 

_...Okay, then_. Maybe I can test the waters.

I extend my hand carefully, like I’m approaching an uncertain stray. Pause to let him smell me first, or at least see the hand coming.

I lay it gently against the side of his face. My palm chafes against his half-day's measure of stubble; my fingers trap long, loose strands of graying hair against his ear. 

Hannibal freezes with the contact at first. His eyes, heavy-lidded in the candlelight, sink closed gradually. _It’s romantic_ , I tell myself. _He wants me to_. _He’s wanted me to for a long time._ He turns his cheek toward my hand, melting away into the touch. 

His lips will be smooth, I reason, still too far away and too far reclined to be able to do much more than cradle his face. They’ll be almost dry, but not quite. Dexterous, thin but firm. _Remember, if things should go that far, those teeth are sharp. They’re the worst part of a big bag of terrible parts, and -- dear god, you should not be thinking this right now._

Blissfully revenant, Hannibal’s lips part slightly when I stroke his cheek with my thumb. It’s -- I swallow heavily, suddenly finding my mouth and lips extremely dry. My thumb twitches next to his mouth; I move it slightly downward to brush against the spot where his lips meet. When I get there, his breathing quickens with a little jolt. 

My breaths are just as heavy, jostling the water around me in little erratic waves. All the colors are inverted and trembling and shimmering around our precipice and he looks -- beautiful, that’s the word. Not quite human, not quite a predatory creature, just -- ethereal. Same. He is the other, darker part of me, and I’m beautiful, too. 

I do. I do want to kiss him. It’s time. 

His eyes still closed, Hannibal draws in his lower lip to dampen it beneath his tongue.

I’m done for. 

I spread my legs a little, adjusting myself at the risk of him glancing down and noticing how hard I’ve become. If I can just figure out how to close the gap between us -- feeling a primal sort of motivation, I release his face and grab the collar of his shirt. 

With a short inhale, Hannibal blinks damp eyes open and finds my face again. I tug on him, intending to coax him over to me, but he doesn’t comply like in my imagination. 

I can’t look away from his lips. My abs aren't complying with my intent to sit up. "Hannibal," I murmur, almost a plea.

His lips quiver slightly as I stare, then pucker in the clear and deliberate shape of an unspoken sound. He relaxes hesitantly, then tries a second time. 

It’s an _O_ he’s trying to make, or maybe a _Y_. I relax back against the wall of the tub and narrow my eyes, distracted.

I know I’ve seen it before, is it an _O_ …? Or a... no, no. His lips are forming a _W_. 

He’s trying to say my name.

I find I very much want to hear it. 

...But watching the petit failure play out on his face reminds me of The Problem again, makes me wonder what ungodly kind of thing happened that has _him,_ of all people, locked in. Instead of a rush of blushing endearment, I suddenly feel like I am staring down a broken thing. Wrinkled and stained notepaper, basic home decor -- willingly suffering the company of everymen. If I could feel pity for him, I might feel it now. 

I swallow, my throat thick. It’s already too late for my erection, which is flagging sadly beneath the water.

Probably for the best.

He doesn’t try speaking more than twice; no sense in beating a dead horse. The words aren’t coming. With a weary sigh, Hannibal lifts a hand to pull my fist away from his shirt and starts looking through the little bottles of soap he brought with him. All the longing and names unsaid aside, I am still in need of a thorough scrubbing. 

The clock ticks away in the bedroom while he starts with my hair.


	16. Ossobucco

These steak rounds are absolutely from a pair of human legs. Circumstantial evidence aside, it’s clear from the shape of the bone protruding on each perfectly-roasted slice. 

The smell is heavenly. I stare at them in contemptuous silence, my mouth watering. 

Dressed in clean clothes and carted off to wait in the dining room for dinner, I am alone and twitching for a distraction. The pan of roasts, waiting for its upcoming debut at the center of the dining table, distracts me from the fact that thirty minutes ago I had severely impure designs upon the person who sourced the meat. Now I need a distraction from the meat itself. 

The journal isn’t cutting it. I notice that Chiyoh’s entries sometimes include location names in English: it looks like they spent time near Quantico in the spring, bouncing back and forth across the Potomac. With nothing to gain from the notes in Japanese, I skip between the dates and locations hoping Hannibal picks up somewhere. 

Meg trundles into the dining room before I get too far, sinking long-faced into the chair furthest from me and sliding down until her chin is level with the table. I give her a glance, but opt not to strike up a conversation. 

“Can we just eat?” She mumbles dolefully after a beat, her voice lilting like a young child’s. 

I sigh. So much for that. “Let’s be polite and wait for everybody,” I tell her dispassionately. 

“They’re all outside shooting creepers. Even Sue. Nobody lets me shoot. Now I can’t even watch.” Meg’s voice rises as she works herself up. “I’d be really good at it. Everybody thinks they’re better than me and they can just tell me what to do. It’s really starting to piss me off.” 

I sigh again. It looks like Meg isn’t one of those problems that go away if you ignore it. Okay. I close the journal and stretch my neck. I did want a distraction. “Why did they say you couldn’t watch?” 

“They said experts only,” she whines. Then, furiously: “Bree is NOT an expert, and neither is Sue, but she’s out there. Everybody except me. I’m not a baby.”

“I’m not out there. Where’s Hannibal?” 

Meg wrinkles her nose. “He’s cooking. Duh.” 

I almost try to convince her that she’s in good company away from the front lines, but I hold my tongue. She’s not like Walter, not really, but he was old enough not to be patronized to; she deserves the same. Regardless of the temper tantrum currently underway. 

Meg’s heart is on her sleeve; her mind is easy to slip into. She’s been trying to place me ever since I woke up: is the fragile man a threat? Is he my peer? Maybe he’s like a parent, an older sibling? 

It occurs to me that I haven’t tried hard to place myself in any particular role while I’ve been carried, spoon fed, dressed and bathed the last two days. If anyone in the house is a baby, it’s me.

I finger the silver handle of my knife, now clipped in the pocket of my trousers. Hannibal's cooking. There's still some time to kill. 

“Take me out to the deck, Meg. Please.” 

\--

It’s a short trip. If Meg finds the wheelchair cumbersome to push, she doesn’t complain; we careen unevenly between the hall and the living room, but we get there quickly. She stops me in front of the sliding glass door and we look out, assessing in our own ways. 

“They’re not even shooting,” the girl points out. She keeps her voice soft, respectful of the new threshold of silence that lies in front of us. 

She’s right, too — or close to it. Tanya and Chiyoh stand and lean respectively at the left side of the deck, lining up and taking regular shots with marksmans’ skill. I can tell Tanya has archery experience from her posture alone; she stands taller with the bow in her hands. Indoors she slumps. Outlined in the dusk light and notching an arrow into her bow, she has the look of either a competitive shooter or someone who grew up bagging bucks on the weekend.

Next to her, Chiyoh is crouched to balance her suppressed rifle against the deck rail. I itch a phantom tingling in my shoulder; I don’t have to wonder about her skills. 

Bree has a rifle, too, a nice Remington, but here Meg’s observation is accurate. Bree’s too tall to use the railing and unable to crouch with her ankle. She stands awkwardly against the rail, pressure off her bad foot, and watches the others. Unarmed, Sue contributes by dashing cigarette ash over the rail. 

“It’s loaded,” I tell Meg, breaking our silence. I keep my voice low, like hers.

“What’s loaded?” 

“The gun.” I turn to look at her. “Every gun. Every time. Start there.”

Realization dawning on her, Meg’s eyes go wide and she nods emphatically. 

“Every time. Start with the assumption it is loaded until you confirm otherwise. Are you following?” 

She nods. 

“Okay. Loaded, unloaded — you don’t point it at anything you wouldn’t mind killing because you might.” 

“Okay.” 

“Let’s go out. If you need to say something, whisper it in someone’s ear.” 

Meg pulls the door open slowly, wincing when the tracks click. The others look up as we roll out onto the deck, questioning with their expressions.

I’d prefer to answer them with my voice. I’m better with my voice. Oh well. 

I point to Sue first, make sure she’s paying attention. When I know she understands, I move my hand to point to the living room. _Go._

She is easily cowed: she jumps a little, puckering her lips. She hurries inside without protesting, dropping her cigarette into a mug on the deck table as she goes. 

This is my design.

I point at Bree next. 

Bree looks at my finger like she’s thinking of arguing, but it’s not a good time or place for it -- unless someone has one of Hannibal’s notepads in their pocket. She ultimately sighs in resignation. When she glances at the rifle in her hands, I beckon for it with a gesture. 

Meg helps her limp back inside once she hands it over. 

Tanya and Chiyoh watch the reorganization in silence. There are no designs for them, not tonight. 

I take a look at the rifle while Meg steers me to the rail. Bolt action, big suppressor. If it’s like Chiyoh’s, the report will be no louder than a pellet gun. A box of shells sits on the rail. 

I'm only half prepared to see the mess covering the yard. Eighty revenants in a tight clump held the intimidation of a wave; now they’ve spread throughout the confines of the fenced yard like a floodplain, filling it entirely. They jerk and stumble into each other, tripping occasionally over their fallen comrades. 

The number of dead ones — dead-dead ones — is inspiring, at least. To Tanya’s credit, there are at least ten of the creatures lying still with arrows sunk deep into their skulls. 

I guide Meg in front of me with my fingertips only, as gentle as circumstances allow. Careful not to grab. She helps lift and position the rifle on the rail. 

The lesson isn’t easy. I can’t talk, she can’t ask questions, and the sun is going down. Stretching awkwardly, I place her hands where they need to go: _here’s the bolt handle, the safety. Finger flat against the trigger here — no, FLAT._ The rifle is, in fact, loaded. 

The Remington coughs as she takes her first shot, the report echoing those Chiyoh makes next to us. I can’t tell if Meg hits her mark or not; I just catch the bullet casing as she flips it out and hand her a new shell. 

She hits a few after the first several shots; I’m only able to infer it from her reactions. Whether she hits them or kills them isn’t clear. The sun sinks below the tree line, leaving only a gradient of pink and grey to illuminate the yard. 

The sliding doors click open behind us; I turn to see Hannibal’s broad frame silhouetted by the light inside. He approaches the rail and glances down, taking in the disorderly invasion and counting our meager culling. 

He doesn’t have to communicate, I just know: Dinner is ready. Time to pack it in for the night. 

I pat Meg’s elbow to pull her attention from the scope and the four of us withdraw, our collective mood shy of victorious.

Tanya breaks the silence when the glass door slides shut. “I have two cases of arrows. It’s not enough for all of them, but it’s quieter than the rifles and the ammo is reusable. I say we pick up at dawn and try the car alarm trick. Hopefully we have something we can patch the fence with.” 

She sets her bow against the wall with a sigh as she heads for the hall. “Y’all can start dinner without me. I’ll be back up in a few.” 

It’s good to see her go. Meg props the Remington up next to the bow; I tell her to make sure the safety is on.

\--

Back in the dining room we are each served one of the handsome shanks on a bed of risotto and salad. The sauce, flavored in part by the power struggle I shared with Tanya, has a base of red wine. Hannibal pours more wine glass by glass around the table. 

The grandeur nature of it — not that I was expecting anything different — compounded with the revenants outside and the near-miss in the bathtub have my head spinning. I follow Hannibal around the table with my eyes, aware that the meager splash of red he poured me will only make my headache worse. I throw it back quickly. 

Bree prays in silence at her end of the table, head bent and hands folded. She misses the poorly-disguised glare it earns her from Hannibal. Chiyoh eats tenderly around her meat, sticking to the rice and salad. 

“I think this is the best one yet,” Sue gushes, coughing around a hearty bite. “Hannibal, I wish you could tell us how you learned to cook. Oh, Will! You can tell us. Chee told us you knew more about that than she does.” She points to Chiyoh’s plate. “Aren’t you going to eat that, baby?”

“My name is Chiyoh,” Chiyoh snaps. “It means ‘eternity,’” she adds defensively, as though that will help.

“Sorry. Just sayin’, I got a place for your venison if you don’t. So, how ‘bout it, Will?”

I don’t really want to talk about Hannibal’s cooking. “Pretty sure he’s self-taught,” I mutter. _Change the subject. Now._ “Chiyoh, what have you been up to for the last few years? I take it you were in Baltimore?”

Chiyoh doesn’t look any more pleased to be roped in to the conversation than me, and she lets me know with a frown. Glancing at the others, she answers in her slow cadence. “I worked in a store. Then an office.” 

The overly-vague answer is met with silence. Realizing the answer wasn't up to expectations, she continues uncomfortably. “A man invited me to join his company. Translating documents.” She pushes her untouched steak away from the rest of her food gently. “It was a pleasant workplace.

It’s hard to picture her in an office, but I find myself oddly comforted by the revelation. She devoted her adult life to a single thankless task, one that I pushed her to complete — or abandon, depending how you look at it. At least she had a few years to try other things while Hannibal was locked up. 

“How did you learn to shoot?” Meg asks her. 

“I used to have a lot of free time.” Chiyoh gives Hannibal a pointed look. He takes a delicate bite of his steak and smiles at her. 

“Will showed me how to use the rifle,” Meg continues boastfully, fishing for a compliment. “I hit three of them.”

“Good job, baby. What did you do for a living, Will?” Bree asks me, “I don’t get the sense you worked in healthcare with Hannibal.”

“Yeah, you said you were a govvie,” Sue recalls. “My son worked for the Department of Agriculture. Where were you at?”

I press my lips together firmly. Great, now I have to talk my way around the FBI. “Uh. Well, the last few years I just fixed boat motors out of my garage,” I say semi-truthfully, eyes fixed on my plate. “I met Hannibal when I was a contractor—“ at Quantico? “—down near Aquia. I taught, mainly. But we worked with a number of psychiatrists.” I gesture toward Hannibal casually, hoping that would settle it. 

A cautious glance up in the silence that follows shows me that my answer, like Chiyoh’s, was unsatisfying. I swallow and offer a smile. “The work was not very interesting,” I lie with a degree of finality. “I h—hadn’t seen Hannibal for a while, actually.” 

A long while -- a bleak three years personified by the empty chill his absence left inside me. The distractions piled on distractions, the avoidance, the small talk and the everyday minutiae. I turn to look at him. “I wasn’t the best friend one could ask for.”

We stare at each other for a beat; Hannibal’s eyes seem to glisten. Maybe it’s a trick of the light. Presently he sets his fork down and reaches over to put a hand on my forearm. 

I stare at it; it’s warm, it buzzes. I look back at his face, particularly the spot at the corner of his mouth where my thumb brushed earlier. I’m not mistaken -- he has gone misty-eyed at my admission. A sensitive psychopath.

“...but Hannibal has,” I murmur, as if to myself. “Nobody has ever — understood me — believed in me — the way he has. Nobody has given up so much for me. And for that, I —“

I trail off, noticing a change to my left. Chiyoh, Bree and Meg’s eyes flick behind me.

Turning my head, I find Tanya standing at the door to the room. 

“—I owe him a debt,” I finish quietly. 

Tanya surveys us cautiously. Her wet hair is knotted into a tight bun and pierced through with a pin. Curiously, she has traded her cotton and denim ensemble for a black high-waisted dress; given the context, I’d guess it’s from her new ill-timed shopping spree. 

It’s nothing particularly fancy, but she is as put-together as I’ve seen anyone since I woke up. With Hannibal under the same roof, that’s a high benchmark.

For a second — just for a second — I forget she is the same person who called me _little guy_ when I first woke up. In that second, she’s not a brash-lipped lovesick bitch — she’s a beautiful young woman, delicate at the neck and waist, tall and poised. 

It’s brief. 

With all eyes on her, she immediately starts to blush. She hurries around the table to her waiting seat at Hannibal’s left, her posture beginning to hunch as she goes. “Sorry I’m late,” she mumbles, taking a seat. 

Neither Bree nor Sue are given to letting the obvious go. “Lookit you, miss thing,” Sue whistles. “You clean up nice. You got court or something?” 

“Nobody told me about the dress code for tonight,” Bree teases. 

Beet red across from me, Tanya touches her shoulder in place of the ponytail she’s used to tugging on. She takes a medicinal sip of wine. “I just needed it,” she quips dismissively. “I felt gross.” 

I follow her eyes as they dart awkwardly around the room, a paltry attempt to disguise what she really wants to see. She moves from the paintings on the wall to the other women, then her silverware and plate. She skips me entirely — no surprise there — and finally arrives at Hannibal, drawing in a hopeful breath. 

He takes his hand off my arm. 

I feel it viscerally, like a punch to the gut. The buzzing sensation, faded into a comforting background noise, is abruptly cut short. It is as jarring as hearing the needle snatched from a playing record. It shrieks like a scratch behind my eyes. 

I whip my head to look at the hand — but he’s just picking up his fork again, cutting back into the roast. I bite my tongue, certain that something stupid is about to slip out. 

Hannibal smiles at Tanya. She smiles back at him. 

“Hey,” she tells him. 

Tanya seems to glow as I stare at her, radiating some kind of darkly feverish halo that twitches along with her pulse — or maybe it’s mine. For the second time today I imagine her murder. 

Hannibal would take the steak knife — conveniently already in his right hand — and he would effortlessly stab it into her eye socket as she sat there drawling away. She’d collapse face-first into her risotto, head at an angle on account of the knife. 

He would pick up the unused knife at her elbow, then, and continue eating with that one instead. 

Me -- I would have another sip of wine. 

But Tanya’s not dead. In fact — she’s looking straight at me, now, eyebrows furrowed critically. She’s saying something I can’t quite hear, as though I’m underwater. She repeats it, her mouth making the puckering shape of a—

“Will!” 

I find myself breathing hard. The others are staring at me. How long was I gone? 

“Hello? What’s your problem?” Tanya continues, irritated. “Never seen a woman before?” 

Mentally grounding myself, I come close to shaking it off. _Nobody’s been killed, Tanya’s just put on some different clothes -- all I have to do is stop staring at her like a -- like a -- just stop staring at her._

I almost manage it -- but now, perhaps trying to calm her, Hannibal puts a free hand on Tanya’s arm. It's almost exactly where he’s just touched me. 

For a second I lose the fine motor controls of my face. My breathing shortens dramatically; my heart’s stopped, my brain shorts out. The only coherent thought I have is a very simple one, bubbling up from my lizard brain: _Mine._ That hand is _mine_. 

“Please excuse me,” I choke out, fumbling my napkin onto the table and pushing hard on both wheels of my chair. 

It's harmless fantasy. That's all. I don't actually want Tanya dead. If I say or do the wrong thing -- right now, tomorrow, after that -- she will die. He will kill her. And this -- I can't watch this and trust myself to act responsibly. I need to get away. 

The wheels don’t seem to want to turn — more likely my arms, like my face, are giving up on me. I suck in deeper breaths to try to calm myself down; there isn’t enough air in the room. 

Touching Tanya. That’s what he likes, isn’t it? Strong-willed, naïve, beautiful women — the stronger their will, the bigger the challenge. The more fun. 

And Tanya is beautiful, I see that now. I nearly missed it before -- she is too naïve to hit my radar, too assuming. Grating in her mediocrity -- but strong, yeah. She's strong.

I am blindsided by an uncomfortable comparison. In contrast to her archer’s build, I am a skeletal bobblehead. I can do little more than tremble as I get carried around like an infant. And as far as Hannibal’s concerned -- he’s played with me already. We are all toys; I am well-worn-in. 

_Looks aren’t so important,_ I chastise myself. Gender isn’t important, at least I get that sense from Hannibal. Even so, Tanya isn’t my _competition,_ not with the shared history Hannibal and I have bled our way through. 

She is certainly not a _threat._

Or she wasn’t -- not until I had the stupid fucking idea of wondering what kissing him would feel like. 

_And_ , I recall dolefully, _he did not oblige me._

Concern for me evident on his face, Hannibal half-rises from his seat. He stretches a hand out to me, the same hand he took away. 

“No,” I wheeze at him, “Please. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” 

I pull at the wheels with my eyes closed to the overbearing number of faces in the room. They’re staring at me, all of them -- witnessing me struggle, seeing the maddening weakness that _isn’t me._ It doesn’t matter how slow I have to go; I need to get away in order to breathe and get my head on straight. 

I can't. I’m floundering.

Small, deft hands close over mine, removing them from the wheels and setting them gently in my lap. 

More babying -- humiliating -- but I'm exhausted. I give in with a sigh and fall back into the chair, leaving myself to the designs of others once again. 

Even with my eyes closed I can feel when we’re out of the dining room; the air comes easier into my lungs. In moments I recognize the smell of lemon dish soap and open my eyes to the kitchen, safely across the hall from everyone else. 

My pride still wounded, I look behind me to see who my savior is.

It’s Chiyoh. 

...First time for everything. 


	17. Unhappy Accidents

Chiyoh washes, I dry. 

We don’t talk; she simply suggests washing dishes and I agree with a nod. It’s a system that works well for both of us, not speaking. 

It takes me a while to come down from — whatever that was in there. It feels like I dissociated. Over what? Jealousy? Frustrated, I wipe half-heartedly at the clean spatulas and spoons Chiyoh hands me. I can’t reach the counter, so she takes the dishes from me when she hands me new ones. This job, too, feels ornamental. 

I’m breathing better by the time we get to the big pans. As I'm wiping off the large dutch oven that the _venison_ roasted in, I finally break our happy silence.

“You’re not eating the meat?”

Chiyoh looks over her shoulder at me, shrugging. “Only if I see it harvested,” she explains. “I suppose you know why.” 

“I know.”

“You don’t have similar reservations,” she observes. 

I just sigh. “I won’t judge you either way. Don’t judge me. We’re all just animated meat at the end of the day.”

“I disagree.” 

The conversation hits a speed bump. A minute later she turns back to me, aggressive, passionate even with her steady voice. “If you can make him stop, you should make him stop.”

It’s such an -- _innocent_ idea. It garners a genuine chuckle. “Oh, I can’t make him stop,” I tell her gently. “ _Nakama_ or _saiai_ or -- whatever we are, that’s not how it works.”

“Then what use are you?”

The reply cuts deep. _Oh. All right._

I don’t have an answer for her. I can barely lift the large ceramic container when I finish wiping it down, demonstrating how useless I really am. She takes it from my lap and sets it on the counter. 

“What happened to him, Chiyoh?" I ask, changing the subject. "What could have possibly happened?” 

She shakes her wet hands into the sink and borrows the towel from me to dry them. “Nothing happened,” she tells me softly, not meeting my eyes. “Nothing that I could see.” 

“Was it this spring?”

She nods. 

“When you took over the journal.”

Chiyoh hesitates, staring into the sink. When she finishes debating herself, she turns around to face me. “He became -- unwell,” she admits. “I, too, was unwell. I thought he would speak again if he got better. He hasn’t.” 

“What do you mean, ‘unwell’?” 

She looks uncomfortable, like she is remembering a sour taste. “He would feed you and not himself. He would feed neither of you. He would do nothing but write, day and night, without sleeping or eating. I would feed you both — or try to. There were many days he wouldn’t let me near.”

A note of strain crosses her face. Her lower lip wrinkles, as though she is about to break into tears, but she swallows past it at the last moment. When she speaks, it is with the same low and guarded cadence. 

“The water filtration on the boat failed. I went ashore, talked to other survivors. I found a man who could make the repair. I bartered with him, brought him on board.” She softens her voice, mindful of the open door. “Hannibal pulled out his eyes and threw him into the river, blinded.”

“What was the man looking at?” I frown. 

It's not the part of her story that Chiyoh finds most shocking, but she did fail to mention it. Rather than answering, Chiyoh just stares at me. In retrospect, the question came out a little quickly. 

It’s not important. I sigh, lowering my voice, too. “Did he eat the eyes?” 

“He — ate _one_ of them,” she confirms, raising an eyebrow. “I won’t tell you what happened to the other one.”

“I doubt you’d surprise me. Did he feed it to me? Would hardly be the first time. First time for an eye, maybe.” 

She looks a little green. She does not answer; I’m fine without knowing for sure. It's not like I remember it. 

“There had to be a catalyst,” I say, shaking my head. “As much as I’d like to tell you that eating eyeballs is a symptom of something we can fix, it’s not. That is him on a good day. This — mutism thing, this is new. This is what’s concerning to me.” 

It’s Chiyoh’s turn to frown. She shakes her head — rejecting my words, not disagreeing with them. I have to replay what I said in my head to figure out the objectionable part. "It's concerning because he is stable and he is consistent, and this is inconsistent," I clarify. "What changed?"

“There was no change,” she insists. “Before the illness -- before he fell quiet -- we were threatened by bandits. We have been threatened many times this year. That wasn’t something new.”

“Something was new,” I insist. “Something you couldn’t see.”

Chiyoh hesitates, looking away. She shakes her head as if whisking away an intrusive thought. 

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she says. “We were cornered. He killed them all. I gather this is not new, either.” She raises an eyebrow. 

“And?” 

“And nothing. Afterward he said nothing. He has said nothing since.”

  
  


—

  
  


After dinner I am deposited in the living room at Hannibal’s bequest; the others drift off to separate corners of the house without much conversation. Sue and Bree take the time to wish us goodnight before heading downstairs to the -- what was it -- _Girl’s Only Clubhouse_ in the basement. Tanya is nowhere to be seen; that works just fine for me. 

Once again I have Hannibal all to myself. He makes no note of my impromptu departure from the dinner table, something I’m embarrassed to bring up. When I do mumble an apology for disrupting his dinner, he only taps me gently with his elbow from the sofa and quirks his lips. _What’s a little panic attack between friends?_

Blissfully uninterrupted, the two of us spend hours drawing out a plan for the morning. It mainly involves staging supplies near the doors and the best positioning for everyone with working legs. If someone had started Meg on ranged weapons sooner, she could be of more help from the safety of the deck or the front window -- but no use worrying over what could have been. I’ll find something for her to do besides sit on her hands. Hannibal, Chiyoh, Tanya and Sue will have to work semi-exposed while patching the fence. All Bree and I can do is support them from the deck.

I tilt my head occasionally to get a glimpse of the hour hand on Hannibal’s watch. When he notices me do it once, he begins holding up his wrist whenever I crane my neck. It’s a satisfying ritual, comfortable, decadent in how utterly _right_ it feels. We are two bodies, one mind. Or, at least, one watch.

The third or fourth time that I nearly nod off, I turn to get a look at the watch and he does not offer it up. Blinking, I realize it’s because he’s fallen asleep. 

I think I’ve seen him sleep once in the entirety of our acquaintance. I take a minute to appreciate the sight. He looks elegantly inelegant: Head thrown back against the cushions, mouth slightly open. His legs are stretched out beneath the coffee table, one hand still loosely balancing a notepad while a pen threatens to slip out of the other. 

Alana mentioned to me in passing that he only slept about four hours a day at BSHCI; it’s not uncommon for psychopaths, whether or not he really is one. Balancing patients, prisoners, victims and various social circuits -- all while still finding time to make three home-cooked meals a day -- wouldn’t have left a lot of time for sleep. Still, he’s past the 48-hour mark. It was bound to happen eventually; his body is mortal. 

I think about nodding off myself. He’s my ride upstairs, providing he still wants me upstairs. It’s probably his turn to sleep in his own bed.

I’m considering how I can flop myself onto the sofa or if I should just lay back in the wheelchair when a murmur of cooing signals a disturbance to the temporary chicken shelter in the stairwell. Footsteps creak their way up the stairs from the first level and I turn my head to see who emerges from the hall. 

It’s Sue, dressed for bed in an oversized T-shirt over purple leggings. I quirk my mouth upward at her and lift a finger to my lips, nodding over at Hannibal. 

She smiles her hello and stoops to collect her cigarettes, dropping a friendly hand on my shoulder as she does. My smile fades into a wince as she heads for the sliding doors.

It’s a conversation that needs to happen -- it might as well be me. I’ve already proven tonight that Sue is ready to jump when I bark. It takes a while, but I inch myself across the room after her and quietly struggle with the door. 

Noticing, Sue lets me out with half a cigarette pinched between two fingers. Below us, wheezing groans pepper the midwinter night sounds: revenants gasping hungrily as they stumble through the dark. 

I speak in a whisper only after the door is closed. It’s quiet enough -- oddly I’m more concerned about waking up Hannibal than attracting any attention from the undead.

 _"We need to talk about the smoking,”_ I tell Sue _sotto voce,_ hoping the light from the living room highlights the friendly concern I’ve intentionally arranged on my face. 

She doesn’t reply. I scratch my chin. _“It’s bad to be out here. They might respond to smell -- and if there’s a fire…”_

 _“I really don’t think it’s that big a problem,”_ she whispers back, whiny more than argumentative. After consideration, she adds: _“How bad would it be if I smoked downstairs? Hannibal didn’t like it when we first got here.”_

I close my eyes for a moment, processing the scope of that understatement. _“You really want to do that?”_ I rasp at her, _“With the kid? ...We can find you a patch. Some gum.”_

Sue sighs. Fortunately, unlike Tanya, her first reaction to a challenge is to back down. She takes a drag and stares at the half-inch remaining on her cigarette, then points at me with it. _“All right. This is my last one. U_ _ntil we sort out everythin’, anyway. I promise.”_

_“Okay. Thanks.”_

She blows smoke upward. The little cloud glows white in the light from the living room and then vanishes into the brilliance of the stars overhead. 

_“I’m sorry,”_ I offer up, my throat starting to feel raw. I’m not sorry. 

_“Nah. I get it. Somebody has to play peacekeeper.”_ She sighs. _“I’m sorry, too, Will. About Tanya tonight.”_

I narrow my eyes up at her, waiting for her to explain. She shakes her head. _“Silly girl. It wasn’t the right time for hussying up like that. If ya haven’t noticed yet, she has a bit of a flame for your friend.”_

_“You don’t say.”_

_“Everyone has their weakness. Hers is not knowing time and place. Well -- I suppose you can say that about me, too.”_ Sue walks over to smudge out the remnants of her smoke into the cup on the table. _“Are you doin’ all right? You looked a little rough at dinner. Don’t feel bad about it. You’ve had a long day.”_

I can’t help but roll my eyes. _“Yeah. I’m fine. I’m--”_

BANG.

A wooden clatter from inside makes the two of us jump, whirling to the right. 

Beyond the glass door, Hannibal is already struggling upright, halfway off the sofa and onto the floor. The coffee table sits two or three feet further into the room than it was when I left it, the source of the noise. 

His eyes are wide for a moment as all three of us catalog his situation: he’s fallen off the sofa, nothing more. He corrects himself quickly, not unlike a cat caught red-handed in a moment of gracelessness.

He is not easily surprised; he comes around quickly. Rubbing his face and rising to his feet, he bends to adjust the coffee table back to its original place. He peeks down the hall, pauses for several seconds with his head cocked as though listening, and then moves to join us outside. 

_“You okay?”_ Sue whispers to him as he shuts the door behind himself. _“Time for all of us to go to bed. We were just goin’ back inside.”_

My energy and Hannibal's energy -- and whatever separates or joins them -- hum contentedly against each other as Hannibal maneuvers around my wheelchair. FG, whatever FG is. Ignoring Sue, he continues across the deck to the railing and peeks over the side.

I didn’t think to check on how many revenants are still milling around down there, if there are any new arrivals since dinner. The sounds -- the moaning, the grunting, the clicking teeth -- are worse than they were in daylight. Watching Tanya and Meg dance around one was stressful enough. Sharing a dark room with one of them...

Hannibal peers down the left and right sides of the yard, curious; far from stressed. He shakes disheveled hair out of his face and lifts a hand to cover a yawn as he heads back over. 

_“I’m gonna hold off on any more smokes for a while,”_ Sue fills him in, her voice pitched as low as possible.

Hannibal lays a light hand on the back of her elbow and gently steers her away from me, back over toward the railing. She moves along with him without hesitation; none of us ever hesitate.

_“Will thinks it’s not the best idea to be going outside. He’s probably right. Hey, I was wondering, remember when I asked you about downstairs? If I could, uh...”_

Stopping at the rail, Hannibal holds out a hand to her, his face unreadable. He beckons once with his fingers. 

Taking his meaning, Sue’s face falls. She dips a hand into her pocket and bashfully hands over the cigarettes. When encouraged by a second waggle of his hand, the lighter follows it. He tucks both into his pocket. 

The old woman’s face wrinkles unhappily, but beneath the guilty sadness on her face there is something else -- a strain of anxiety. She can smell it, maybe, her animal brain catching a whiff of the predator just like mine once did.

 _“Never mind,”_ she whispers up at him. _“I’m, uh -- awful sorry, Hannie.”_

Nodding his understanding, Hannibal lays a gentle hand at the crook of her neck.

I don’t see the knife come out; I only catch a small glint of light and the sweeping motion of his arm as it comes up. Surgically precise, Hannibal sticks the blade into the opposite side of Sue’s throat. 

It’s a small cut, deliberate, but not a mortal one. Sue’s mouth pops open in surprise, a soundless little O shape half illuminated by the light of the living room. 

Hannibal’s face never changes. He extracts the knife with a small jerk, guides Sue slightly to the right by the shoulders, and then neatly tips her over the rail into the darkness. 


	18. Cow

I sit motionless by the door, not so much as twitching as Sue’s legs disappear over the rail. 

I recognize the emotions I feel raging, rending at each other inside me. They’re alive in me, powerful, but they’re far away. They are on the other side of that invisible edge, partitioned, locked away in a separate corner of my mind. 

It’s the same place I kept them whenever I had to piece together a crime scene, step into a killer’s shoes. They are real, they are compelling — and my body, my actions, are free from them now. 

There’s a sickening thud from the dark beyond the rail, then light, manic sounds of shuffling below. Sanguine, Hannibal peers over the side of the deck again to watch. 

Chain link rattles after a moment, an intentionally repetitive noise. A plea for help. It is followed shortly by the sounds of a struggle -- a chorus of growling, thick groans, heavy breathing. 

There is a profoundly wet sound, like a bag of fluid ripped open and spilled on linoleum. After that there is little beyond the breathy moaning of the creatures and ugly, sloppy chewing. 

Hannibal’s interest at the scene beneath us is best described as academic. When the show is over -- ten or fifteen seconds, at most -- he checks his hands, pulls out a handkerchief, and bends to wipe up a small dash of blood that landed on the boards by his feet. 

He retrieves Sue’s lighter from his pocket and tosses it gently out into the darkness, watching it fall. He carefully stages the box of cigarettes on the edge of the rail: a tableau in minutiae.

 _There we go,_ says his voice in my head. _Just an unhappy accident._

I should feel something more. The rage in the back of my mind twists into a storm, but it’s disconnected. The sensations I associate with horror — my pounding heart, my throat closing up -- they’re locked down. The only thing in my mind is the gentle buzzing. 

It frees up a lot of resources. I wonder what time it is, if he’ll show me his watch if I incline my head just right.

 _I’ve been expecting this,_ I tell myself. _That’s why._ I’ve known this was coming since I woke up and saw that Picasso.

After a final look around Hannibal returns to wheel me inside, closing the glass door but not locking it. He listens to the house for a moment, decides no one is awake except for us, and bends to pick me up.

He leaves the lights on as we head upstairs. There would have been no one to turn them off. 

\--

  
  


“I feel like you just killed _me,”_ I tell him, the words finally crackling from my throat.

I wait to speak until after his bedroom door closes behind us. The feelings still dance around in their jail cell in my mind, but they’re calming to a manageable roar now.

Hannibal lays me on his bed and pulls over the stately desk chair from its place by the window. He undoes the buttons of my shirt and slides it off, followed by my shoes and pants and socks. I do not think about grabbing him and drawing him closer to me; not now. 

Only when I’m tucked in neatly beneath the covers does he settle himself down and take out the notepad to communicate. It’s going to be a slow and painful conversation — possibly a lethal one — and I feel as tired as he looks. According to the clock on the mantle, it’s past three in the morning. 

The first note he hands me is just petulant:

 _I didn’t kill Sue.  
_ _I disabled her larynx and put her in a difficult position._

It’s no use calling him out. “I — I liked her. You knew I liked her. We -- we just spent hours deciding she would be the lookout in the garden! What was all that, just bullshit?”

He sighs before writing, frustrated but patient. 

_Not “bullshit.”_   
_Opportunity knocked._   
_Your empathy is confusing her motive of living with your own motivations, whatever those are. Would you have liked her if you met her a year ago, in a softer world?_

“I wouldn’t wish her death.”

Even as I’m formulating the words, the truth bubbles up from my gut without my permission. It softens my voice, makes it small. 

“No,” I breathe out shakily, “I wouldn’t. Like her, I mean. I wouldn’t like her.”

Hannibal smiles and makes a tilting nod, as though that settles it. 

He writes. As I take the note and start to read, the very fibers of the paper seem to make a tinny, screeching noise in my head like radio interference.

_Even if you did see some value in that cow (I suspect you did not, not really,) it would only mean she wasn’t wasted -- she had the value you afforded her. In that case, good for her. It was infeasible to make something nice or useful from her given the circumstances._

Good for her. 

The words are harder to read than they would be to hear from his lips. _Cow. Wasted. Make._ His antlers are inside my chest, squeezing everything inside the cavity. 

I breathe him out. He is daring me to condemn him — that has to be what this is, another test. 

“Why?” I ask him evenly. “What was it, exactly? That wasn’t you punishing me. It wasn’t _because_ she was a cow -- everyone is a cow. Was it because she was underfoot? The cigarette smell? She irritated you? Or is this just your way of reminding me who you are before I get any closer to you?”

Hannibal goes very still. 

It feels risky, putting it into words like that. I let out a shaky breath. “All of the above, maybe? Hannibal, I know who you are. You don’t have to _test_ me. So why kill her if you couldn’t _make something_ while you were at it?”

My tirade complete, I look him over again. I notice his chest rising and falling a little faster than usual, a tiny tremor on his upper lip. He’s not looking at me, but rather the bedpost to my right. 

_I hit a nerve,_ I think, but I’m not sure which one. He remains still for a long time, eyes fixed in place. 

His lips are strained and tight when he finally writes his answer: 

_Are you aware that she left you alone here for two days after I entrusted you to her care?_

My breathing stops. I read it again. 

I think back to scooting along the floor downstairs, naked and starving. I remember the look he gave me when I told him I woke up alone, that I didn’t want to be alone. Sue reading the paperback in my sickroom, startled when I woke up.

I warned Sue to lay off the nicknames thinking I was prolonging her life. Then I unwittingly ratted her out over an ill-timed cigarette run.

I killed Sue.

The world feels very quiet. The clock ticks away, counting out the seconds that it will take me to come to terms with this. I know it’s seconds, not days. Not even hours. 

Hannibal watches me struggle over it. He is the epitome of patience, his legs crossed elegantly. It’s almost like a calm evening appointment back in Baltimore; almost, but he has a certain wetness to his eyes as he peers at me across the bedspread. 

I can’t comment. I knew, but I didn’t know. 

I still wouldn’t wish her death. 

“What... what happens now?” I finally ask, pausing to swallow. The note containing Sue’s ultimate sin joins the others, a little growing pile of evidence to be destroyed before the morning. 

_After a brief setback the tragedy will refocus group efforts. Our project may be delayed. You will be mobile in a few weeks’ time and infinitely more contributive than dear Sue._

“Yeah,” I rasp. “And who’s next?”

He only has time to glance at the notepad before I keep going, my temper flaring. I don’t know how many seconds it’s taken. Not enough, I’m sure. “Will it be Bree, the devout? Not Meg, not now, anyway; you’re too fond of wounded children. Chiyoh is your bodyguard, and you won’t kill Tanya as long she’s--”

 _\--Kissing your ass,_ I nearly spit out. I choke myself off, aghast. I can’t drag Tanya in to this right now — it would be like pulling a trigger. 

Hannibal stares at me sternly, pursing his lips. After a moment he squeezes and shakes out his hand, casting it a glare for its betrayal. 

_Your mind goes to killing so quickly and effortlessly that you think everyone else’s must do the same. Believe it or not, Will, I do not intend to murder every person I meet.  
_ _My wrist tires._

I show him my teeth. “Your wrist tires,” I sneer.

“Tell me your mind doesn’t go there quickly. Every time you get the slightest bit irritated, the slightest bit insulted. Yeah. I think about killing. Maybe it’s more than most people. I also pick up whatever you put down. Don’t play with me.”

As I stare him down, I can’t help but think he looks defeated. He isn’t quite frowning, but his good humor is all but gone.

 _What do you want, Will?_ His next note reads. Vague. Petulant. 

...Entrapment. 

I close my eyes, the weight of everything compounding on the question. There are so many things that I want, suddenly — or that _are wanted,_ by _someone_ — and they’re all howling from my insides, impatient to get out. 

_I want to stay close to you. To see you. Talk to you. I want to be with you. Facing you. I want to hunt with you. I want you to open me up like a book. I want to know my wife and son don’t need me anymore. I want not to be needed anymore. I want to slice the ginger. I want_

(If you can make him stop, you should make him stop.) 

_not to care about Sue. I want not to care about these people. I want not to care about anything. I want you to carry me. I want to kiss you. I want to live underneath your skin._

_i want to hear my name from your lips again_

I shake my head, scattering the howling. It’s too much, too many voices, and they can’t all be mine. 

Hannibal is still waiting for an answer to the nebulous question, looking tired -- as though he knows not to get his hopes up. Knowing what I want has never been my strong suit. I clear my throat, find something else to say. 

“I want to go to sleep,” I tell him flatly. “I need time to process this.”

Hannibal blinks, considering. After a moment he stands up, shakes out his trousers, and collects the pile of notes by my side. 

Before he turns off the lights and leaves the room he shows me a bottle of sleeping pills, silently offering me one. 

I accept politely.


	19. Alibi

I dream that he shares the bed with me. I’m pretty sure it’s only a dream. 

_As we lay we are perfect equals, black and white refracted to grey, side by side and staring at the ceiling. There is no mourning, no tumult of emotions barricaded away — we simply exist, hearts beating out call and response in the dark._

_On my head, one antler curls up vine-like from my skull against the pillows and the headboard. It scratches against the wall — this isn’t its natural environment. Next to me, Hannibal’s matching one stretches out in parallel, though his is dark and bloody at the tips._

_When my shoulder brushes against his shoulder we become one._

_Our flesh and hair and skulls sink together, absorbing and re-molding as the antlers come together. New synapses fire like lightning in our shared mind; locked doors open, dark and cold halls light up with warmth and the opening arias of an opera._

_The horrors I’ve locked away are no longer in a cell. We approach them on a red carpet, down a long and elegant hallway. Half of me is me, half of me is him; each step down the hallway is a perfectly calculated balancing act that we complete harmoniously._

_Gilded double-doors open for us at the end of the hall, leading the way. It looks like a theater inside, rows of red plush seats, drapes the length of houses, a large and glittering chandelier overhead._

_On the stage are all the things that haunt me played by almost-familiar looking shades: at stage left there is the Tragedy of Sue replayed in melodramatic pastiche. Molly and Walter hold each other like Madonna and child near the center, still stuck in the hospital where I last saw them._

_I don’t recognize all of them immediately, which makes me question what I’m actually seeing. Mixed in with my painful memories there’s a set of strangers slow dancing over a pantomime fire. At the very back a woman kneels with her back turned to us, her long dark hair trailing down over a pristine white robe._

_Are these Hannibal’s bad memories? His guilt?_

_The lead act could belong to either of us: Abigail, dancing in slow ballet circles in the spotlight. A long red scarf knotted at her neck trails behind her as she spins. She, especially, brings a lump of sadness to my throat — one I’ve worked for years to make peace with. I’ve come close once or twice._

_Half of my throat is Hannibal’s throat. It’s tight on his side, too._

_It’s snowing in the theater, I realize gradually. First it seems to be part of the act: fluffy pieces of torn cotton dropped from above, centralized over the couple dancing in the fire. But the cotton spreads, coating the other players in tiny specs of white, and soon the seats and the aisles also begin to glisten. The granules that fall on our arms are not cotton; they’re cold._

_The theater feels unsafe now; the actors begin to lose track of their steps as the snow starts to billow. As soon as the sense of danger starts to prick at our skin, Hannibal’s fist closes tightly in our shirt and we pull ourselves away — out from the quickly-chilling pantomime prison and back into the safety of the hall._

_It feels better with the door between us and the memories; it is as good as a lock. We rest our antlers against the door, sighing our way back into the warmth and the sounds of the music._

_I want Hannibal again. I want his warm face and his steel-boned hands._

_I don’t have to look far; we share a body here. He knows it as soon as I think it; we hug ourselves as tightly as we can. It’s good. It’s so warm. I want to stay here._

_Our conjoined palaces exist between actual breaths in our conjoined bodies. We are melted together from crown to tailbone between the sheets. Will-Hannibal holds himself tenderly, warm and comfortable in his bed. He is whole now, he is whole now, he is whole..._

— 

I’m just Will when I wake up. 

The dream was very convincing; I have to look around for evidence that I spent the night entirely alone. Apart from the channel of warmth I’m creating in the bed, there’s no signs Hannibal was here in the night. 

By the light in the room, dawn was hours ago. Squinting at the pendulum clock, I see the hour hand around ten. I lie back and stare at the ceiling; they’ll be discovering Sue missing if they haven’t already. All that planning for nothing. 

...also, Sue. 

_It’s all right_ , I tell myself; _that pain is safe inside the theater._

It takes a minute for me to remember the theater was just a dream, too. My dream, Hannibal’s theater, my memories, Hannibal’s memories. I wonder who the strangers were, who they were to him, before I recall they were purely an invention of my imagination. I can sync my clock to Hannibal’s clock, we can share rooms in our palaces, but I can’t pull his memories from the ether. 

Without much to do and too annoyed to sleep, I double-check the bottle of sleeping pills by the bed to see what it says about dreams. It says nothing. 

It’s over an hour before anyone comes for me, more reason to be annoyed. When the door opens and Hannibal and Meg breeze in, I’m again reminded why. 

Meg stares at me a little vacantly. Hannibal has arranged his mask with a touch of grim reverence, not unlike the face of an undertaker. He hands me a pre-prepared note immediately: 

_Sue has died in an accident in the night._

I stare at the paper. The anger I feel is — again, I want to say it’s safe in the theater, but that wasn’t real. It’s — locked up. It’s compartmentalized. In a few seconds I’m able to picture a different Will Graham, one that didn’t see anything last night. Maybe that Will lives in a world where Sue did die by accident. I put his words in my mouth. 

“Dead? What happened?” 

“She fell,” Meg tells me, her small voice raw but not overly emotive. “Off the porch.”

From behind her line of sight, Hannibal winks at me. 

I sigh and cover my eyes with a hand, partially in feigned dismay. Mainly so I don’t have to look at either of them. 

“Are you sad?” Meg asks me. 

I’m not anything, but anger is making more of a racket from its prison cell than sadness. “Yes,” I lie softly to her after a few seconds. “I... can’t believe it.”

“Don’t be sad,” the girl shakes her head, “loads of people died already, and —everybody dies eventually, so —” 

Her words drift off as she loses confidence in them. Hannibal begins pulling back the sheets for me, our new little morning ritual. At least it isn’t Tanya today. Meg helps him stretch me out and get me upright, glad for the distraction. 

Despite her advice for me, she sure looks like she’s fighting back tears. 

—

We run into Chiyoh on the way downstairs. She’s coming up from the first level, an empty pan in her hands. Below her I get my first real look at the chickens - six or seven of them, quiet as they peck frantically at the layer of seeds she left behind on the floor. 

Hannibal pauses respectfully to let her pass into the hallway first. Chiyoh looks troubled, too, but she usually does. As Hannibal takes me to the wheelchair, I realize I’m dreading the pending separation from him. It’s easier to imagine our bodies molded together while we are actually touching. I’m cold when he sets me down. 

Everyone is present, but nobody speaks. Through the glass windows to the deck, I see Tanya sit alone by the railing in one of the deck chairs, staring out into the back yard. The sliding door sits open, an invitation to stay quiet. The room is cold, not just me. 

Bree eyes me from the couch, the same spot where Hannibal drifted off last night. Her eyes are puffy. 

“You heard?” She croaks to me. The melody in her voice is gone. I nod my head. If I say something it will probably be the wrong thing — at best inconsiderate, at worst implicating. 

“Foolish,” she bites out. “Foolish.” Her breath hitches and she covers her eyes. 

I don’t want to ask, but the words need to pass my lips. “What happened?” I ask her gently. “Where is she?” 

Bree waves in the direction of the deck, too overcome to speak.

I hesitate; tragedy or not, I don’t want to talk to Tanya or even share space with her. Her bow leans against the rail outside next to an empty quiver. She probably doesn’t want to talk to me either. 

Chiyoh saves me again. “Tanya found her. She is in the paddock outside. We think she fell in the night.” 

Chiyoh’s words are gentle, but without strong emotion. If she suspects Hannibal, nothing in her expression suggests it to me. It occurs to me suddenly that she might not suspect him at all. 

The realization makes me feel oddly alone. It was a comfort to think that someone else in the house also knows exactly what Hannibal is, but then again, Chiyoh doesn’t know _exactly_. Murderer, yes. Cannibal, yes. _Unwell._ But does she know his philosophy? That the face he wears isn’t always his real one? That the things he does are gestures of _love?_

She saw him on the boat. _Unwell._ She thinks he’s better now, more or less. 

Sighing inwardly, I dismiss the question and focus on my reluctant lies. Gentle on the accounts of Bree and Meg, I ask the appropriate questions: where did she fall from? What was she doing outside? How did nobody hear? 

No one knows. “I’m sure it was quick,” Chiyoh defers with a look at the girl. I also glance at Meg, now curled up at Bree’s side and nestled under her arm. Even Clueless Will would give it a rest for now, I decide. 

Hannibal hands me a note over my shoulder. _We need to clear the yard to get her. Tell them._

“To get her?” I ask, confused. 

When he doesn’t move to reply, I show the note to Chiyoh. “What does he mean? To _get her._ ”

Chiyoh sighs. Folding the note away, she takes the handles of my chair and steers me out onto the deck.

We park against the rail next to Tanya’s chair. Tanya doesn’t appear to notice. It is almost exactly where Sue and Hannibal stood last night. A forensics team would find hairs or fibers latched into the wooden rail; they’d dust the glossy cardboard box of cigarettes for prints. I see the single, semi-smudged spot of blood on the board at our feet; to amateurs, it could be anything. No one looks twice at it. 

The soft groans from below sound less ominous in the late morning light. Struggling into a half-standing position, I peer down into the yard at what I couldn’t last night: the paddock fence directly below, the monsters stumbling across the patio. They ignore us, too far above their line of vision. 

Inside the paddock are three revenants, all clinging to the chain link and knocking aimlessly against it in a blind attempt to push through. Two were there yesterday morning, having stumbled through the trap at the far end of the yard. 

The third one is Sue. 

_“Jesus,”_ I swear -- much too loud. 

Several things happen at once.

Below us, seven or eight rotting heads swivel to look up. Their eyes — those that have them — lock on me and fixate, cloudy or bloodied or white as they are. 

Chiyoh slaps a hand over my mouth — needlessly, since I already realize my mistake — and holds my face still. Afraid to move with the things staring at me, I don’t try to pry her off of me immediately. 

The revenants can’t get to us, but those that shuffle near the patio begin closing ranks, heads all tilted up. The ones directly below snap their exposed jaws at us and lift their arms. 

I brush Chiyoh's hand away and clutch the railing, supporting my weight on it even as I feel her pulling me back into the wheelchair. I’m not just looking at the creatures, not just looking at Sue — what Sue is _now_ — I’m seeing what happened. 

The big rust-colored spot by the gate, that’s where she died, where she was pulled open. Revenant Sue claws at the gate next to it, her chest cavity open and bright red. 

She is pincushioned with a dozen arrows at least; they catch against the fence as she bobs against it like a moored boat. She sways stiffly, taking no notice. More arrows are sunk deep into the ground -- someone was trying hard. 

Beneath the arrows, Sue’s T-shirt, white last night, is bloody and ripped open down the front. There’s an empty cavity where her stomach was. Strips of skin hang in tatters down to her knees. Beside the red rash of her excavated chest, one aged breast is left intact and exposed to the air, vulgar in its indignity. 

_The weight of her hand on my shoulder as she walked to the door._

There’s no noticeable disturbance at the spot where she fell, but I can see the white lighter lying innocuously in the grass a few feet away. 

I wind it back, tip back the pendulum: _she falls head-first, too shocked by the knife wound to resist. She lands on her shoulder or her back, breaking bones. The creatures turn to her as she pulls herself upright, scrambles for the fence. Unable to scream, she shakes at the chain link. She has a clear view of the window to the basement floor where her friends are sleeping soundly._

Hannibal was right — he didn’t kill Sue. He did something much worse. 

I gasp, interrupted, as Chiyoh shoves me backward into the wheelchair. Snapped from night to daylight, reality imagined to reality experienced, I pant in small coughs and twitch between the perceptions. Chiyoh pulls the chair straight back across the deck; the yard slips out of view. As the deck shrinks away I see Tanya stand, pick up her bow, and follow us. 

I’m still settling myself between the reconstruction and the present when I join the semi-circle the six of us make around the coffee table. _House meeting time._

“In order to get her,” Chiyoh tells the group softly, “We need to clear the yard.” 

No-one speaks immediately. 

Tanya, puffy-eyed and looking worse for wear, is at least back to her status quo jeans and band t-shirt this morning. She bats aggressively at the wetness on her face and puts a hand on her hip. “I fucking — used all my arrows. I’m sorry. I was trying to put -- to put her to rest. I couldn’t— hit it.” 

The group is silent. 

“We have a plan,” I tell them. Apparently it will be slightly different from the one we formulated last night, with no Sue and no arrows. I make a few modifications on the fly. “The supplies on that list go down by the patio door. We set off the alarm as soon as everything is in place. One person in front to close the gate, two in the back to fix the fence. Bree and I play lookout.”

They’re all looking at me again. This leadership shit was never my wheelhouse; I have to channel Jack Crawford. I’m uncomfortable in his skin. 

I rub the bridge of my nose and sigh. “Everyone be careful. Be quiet. When we’re done she can rest and we can mourn. I’m -- I’m going to need help getting upstairs.” 

—

In an awkward break in routine, Tanya and Chiyoh take me up to the attic room between the two of them. It’s an unexpected workout for me, gritting my teeth with each step up. 

Chiyoh’s room looks different in the morning light, or maybe just with the knowledge that it’s her space. I notice new things: that there’s dried meat tied up to the rafters, a little hot plate plugged in next to the space heater. Her own private, ethically-sourced stash. There’s also a little shrine in the corner, nestled in next to a leaning stack of covered paintings. She hadn't struck me as the religious type. 

Definitely new today is a plump pillow and pile of folded blankets beneath the second window. Maybe this explains where Hannibal’s been sleeping while I’ve been enjoying his princely accommodations. It's quite a shift in austerity. 

Tanya has no words for me on the way up, but Chiyoh seems to have escaped her shit list. When they’ve settled me into the chair by the shattered window, Tanya looks around the attic as though she, too, is unfamiliar with the space. 

“You know, you didn’t have to move your little thing up here on our account,” she tells Chiyoh flatly, pointing at the shrine. “It’s your house. I don’t think Bree minds.”

Chiyoh focuses on peeling back a quilt and layer of plastic sheeting that covers the ruined window. “It’s better here,” she says dismissively. I can’t blame her. 

Her attempt at cordiality blown off, Tanya sighs and turns for the door. “I’ll go get the walkie-talkies,” she grumbles and trudges back down the stairs. 

Chiyoh bundles up the makeshift insulation and sets it on the floor. She’s patched the holes in the wall already, too; good thing the revenants won’t be shooting back at me today. 

The front yard has about twenty revenants that I can see, many of them standing idly by the fencing adjacent to the street. The gate over the driveway sits open, but none of the things are interested in using it. Not yet.

Having seen Sue, the others strike me differently now. I see one or two children in the crowd beyond the fence; elderly men and women, people of every race. Suddenly I’m itching to get the rifle back into my hands and start dropping them. They, like Sue, should be at rest. 

Chiyoh unpacks the same rifle I used with Meg, screwing a powerful suppressor onto the end of it before handing it over to me. I’m strong enough to sit up this time and even manage to heft the weapon onto the sill by myself. She sets two boxes of rounds in my lap and nods in the direction of the street. 

“Tanya will do it,” she tells me. “The gate.” 

I can’t help but curl my lip a little. Covering for Tanya means I’ll have to talk to Tanya. “Not you?” 

“I’m better at fixing things.”

“I respectfully disagree,” I quip, but I give her a look to show her I’m still willing to be civil. I change the subject, nodding toward the far wall. “Did Hannibal sleep up here last night?” I try to make it sound casual.

Chiyoh glares at me for a long minute, assessing whether or not my curiosity deserves an answer.

“If what you are really asking is if Hannibal killed that woman,” she ultimately says, “he didn’t kill her.”

“...Because he slept here last night,” I finish the thought, nodding to myself. 

It’s an interesting take, and it answers my question about how Chiyoh perceives Hannibal. I’ll have to tell her how alibi timetables work some day. Not today.

“No, I don’t think he killed her,” I confirm with honesty — with a mental emphasis on the word _think._ “Although I can’t say I think he liked her very much.”

“No.”

She turns to look at the neat pile of blankets in the corner for a moment, then looks back to the window and the tide of revenants in our field of view. “You were wrong. Last night.”

“About — what? That something happened to him? Something happened.” I uncap the rifle’s scope and peer into it, trying to make a count of the revenants beyond the fence. There are far too many, well over one hundred. “It was something subtle, maybe. Have you thought of anything?” 

“No,” She says again. “I didn’t mean about that.”

I lift my head, frowning at her. She shakes her head, casting a ripple through the wavy strands of hair that fall loose from her ponytail. “You said this is new — his silence. But it isn’t.”

That gets my attention.

I sit up straighter, abandoning the scope. “What do you mean it isn’t?” I ask her, enunciating carefully. Beyond my control, my voice takes on an edge. “It's happened before?”

Chiyoh picks at the unfinished wood of the windowsill with long nails. After a pause, she nods uncomfortably.

“When?” I press. “Why?”

It’s like drawing teeth. While I understand her reluctance to talk to me, she has to understand we have the same goal in mind. Don’t we?

I’m on the verge of pressing harder when Tanya stomps back up the stairs with a box in her hands, effectively cutting the conversation short. I sigh heavily, only now realizing how hard I’ve been gripping the rifle. I stretch my muscles as casually as I can as Tanya sets the box down on Chiyoh’s bed and starts to look through it. 

“Hannibal has the materials in place,” she reports, pulling out a headset. “He says to set the alarm off when we’re ready; he’s going to start moving things as soon as the back yard is clear enough. Bree’s already on the porch with the rifle.” 

We set up and test the radios. I frown as the two women chummily help each other clip on the receivers and tuck the wires out of the way. It's odd, seeing Chiyoh work well as part of a team. When she finishes securing their equipment, she gives me a mournful frown and disappears back down the stairs. 

Left alone, Tanya and I sigh at each other in resignation. I scratch my beard. 

One of us has to speak first — I guess it’s me. “I’ll be your eyes. I’ll hail you when the front yard is empty enough for you to get to the gate. You can keep your eye on Bree until it’s time. Once you’re outside, I’ll pick off any of them that get too close to you.”

She nods.

“Hannibal, please test your radio,” Chiyoh’s voice crackles in our ears. The reply comes in the form of two quick thumps from his microphone.

“There’s a lot of potential for something to go wrong,” I continue to Tanya. “All those there already on the street -- if we draw them back by mistake they can absolutely overwhelm the rest of the fence. You may have to close the gate with some still inside. If there’s a tipping point, I’ll be the one making the call.”

“You weren’t a federal contractor,” she tells me coldly, out of the blue. “What did you really do and why are you so cagey about it?”

Technically, I _was_ a contractor, but I see her point. “Now isn’t the time,” I bite back, finding my teeth. _Time and place._ Chiyoh’s not the only one who can get stingy with details. “Go downstairs, focus, be careful, and once we get through this — _try asking nicer._ ”

Tanya shows me her own teeth under an aggressive smile. The phrasing isn’t lost on her. “Fine,” she seethes, digging into the pocket of her jeans. “Go on and do it.”

She tosses the decoy car’s key fob to me and turns on her heel; I'm not expecting it and the key smacks and bounces off my chest. I miss it, but manage to catch it against my knee before it slips to the floor. 

I depress the alarm button with grinding teeth. It would have been a bitch to get it up off of the floor.


	20. Thump, thump

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zombies, guns, arrows, swords, and a big revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this chapter contains a non-explicit, sanitized description of and reference to a sexual assault that could potentially be triggering for some readers. 

The revenants filling the street and the front yard react in unison to the hollow peal of the alarm. They stand relatively peacefully, wavering like tall plants in a light wind. When the agitated honking begins their heads turn almost robotically to the source of the sound. Within two heartbeats they all begin to move. 

They move like a liquid. I see one walk directly in to an abandoned car before correcting its path; they head straight for their target until deterred by something in their way. Those already pressed against the interior of our yard’s fence have the most trouble; their path blocked, they simply reach through the bars toward the street. 

Tanya’s voice hisses over the headset. “They’re starting to move in the direction of the front,” she reports, hesitantly optimistic. “Everyone stay quiet.” 

The rifle will make a noise even with the suppressor, so I delay my instinct to start shooting until it’s necessary. As the minutes wear on, my frustration grows. They’re trickling out from the side yard, not pouring. 

The pack by the blaring car is already pretty dense, mainly consisting of the crowd drawn in two days ago. The closest revenants press their deteriorating bodies against it on all sides, causing it to jostle in the street. I wonder how much stress the car can take; a quick check through the scope shows it’s already pretty busted. 

“Eight left in the back,” Tanya reports in time. “There’s one kind of stuck around the far side of the paddock.” 

I press the button on my receiver. “Might be one to shoot. This is taking longer than I thought.” 

“How’s the front yard?” 

I frown down. The thirty or so that are slowly shifting across the front planters and the overgrown sod are all headed in the right direction, and only a few are getting caught on the fence. “Not bad,” I report. “Street’s pretty full, but the ones inside are getting out there slowly. I’ll let you know.” 

It’s another fifteen or twenty minutes before those downstairs report that the back yard looks clear enough for them to move out. Bree takes four shots to fell the one left by the paddock. When Chiyoh announces they’re going out through the patio, only silence follows on the radio. The tension prickles like dry static. 

There’s fifteen in the front yard, still, and they trickle by twos and threes around from the corner of the house at decelerating intervals. Three are stuck on the fence; they’ll have to be shot down. Overall, things seem to be going well. 

“There are many of them outside the fence here,” Chiyoh tells us. “Hannibal will stay on the outside of the fence to clear.” 

It’s not part of the plan. I furrow my brow at the news. “How’s he getting back in, exactly?” 

There’s only silence. “Bree?” I snap into the receiver.

“Not sure, Will. He looks like he knows what he’s doing,” Bree replies from the deck. Her voice is still heavy, but some of the musicality has started to return. 

“Okay, we have the fence panel upright,” Chiyoh reports, faster than I expected. 

I press my button. “Good. If the backyard is clear, I want Meg to run out and pick up as many arrows as she can. Tanya, will you go to the side yard and play lookout?” 

“Yes,” Tanya replies. 

“Move toward the front yard slowly. Don’t turn the corner until I give you the all-clear, though, there’s still about ten of them up here.” 

“Got it.” 

The car in the street is getting a rough treatment. The revenants jostle it mercilessly; one of the windows busts out. I can barely see it through a wall of dead flesh and reaching limbs. “We’re going to need a new decoy car after this,” I tell the others sourly. 

“The fence panel is chained in place now,” Chiyoh confirms. 

A fourth revenant gets stuck on the fence right at the driveway and I wince. “Six left in front, but the street’s completely mobbed. They might start trickling back in if we don’t act soon. What’s Hannibal doing?” 

“He’s headed toward the street through the next yard,” Chiyoh answers. “Toward you.” 

I lean to the side to get a better view of the neighboring property; I don’t see him. “Hannibal, can you give me a sign?” 

It comes pretty quickly:  _ Thump, thump _ . 

“You know what you’re doing?” 

_ Thump, thump. _

I leave him to it. There’s four left in the front - the four on the fence -- and when one wanders in the opposite direction through the gate, I decide that it’s time. “They’re starting to bounce back in. Time to come around the corner. We’ve got four stuck on the fence and one heading across the yard. I’m firing on that one first.” 

I find it in my scope and line up the shot, tracking the creature’s head as it shuffles. The rifle jumps slightly when I fire, but it’s no louder than a sneeze. Still, several revenants on the street turn their heads toward the house at the sound.

Tanya and Chiyoh slink around from the side yard in time to see the revenant slump over in place. They head toward the driveway, sticking close to the house. Chiyoh has a machete in her hands; Tanya’s picked up a few arrows from the back yard and has one pre-notched. I take aim at a second revenant that shuffles inconveniently at the center of the gate, hoping to clear some space. 

As I line up my crosshairs, Tanya’s blonde ponytail bounces across the scope. Dangerously close call. My eye twitches.

It’s funny -- something as small as a missed shot could end up being pretty bad for her given how close she is to the thrumming pack of them in the street. I patiently wait for Tanya to move around the far side of the truck before focusing on the errant revenant’s head and firing. 

I miss the shot, wincing at myself as I release the casing and fumble a new cartridge in. It gives me pause: I didn’t  _ mean _ to miss it, did I?

I huff out a humorless laugh at my own expense; no, of course I didn’t mean to miss.

“Will,” Tanya hails me on the radio. I peek around the scope to look down at her face, a little peach oval blob. “How’s the gate look?”

I find the radio button blindly. “There’s a handful right by the gate that will make closing it hard. That one at the corner that was stuck on the fence is heading toward you now. I’m taking it out.” 

The revenant, lured by either the soft gunshot or the girls’ movement, is free of the fence and stumbling toward them across the grass. I pause to look down the scope at Tanya’s head again, hovering there. I convince myself that it’s just because I’m talking to her. She treats me to a healthy frown. 

I move the rifle to find the revenant in the yard and quickly knock it out; this shot doesn’t miss. Chiyoh finds a place behind the second truck in the driveway and the two of them peer around their hiding spots at the street. 

Another sound joins the blaring horn and the mass of groaning: a second car alarm, this one coming from further away. I can’t see the car that’s making it. Its pitch is different from the one taking a beating across the pavement, shriller and faster to repeat.

“Hannibal, tell me that was you.” 

_ Thump, thump. _

I hold the remote key up and aim it at the remains of the decoy on the street, disarming it. The groaning of the mob seems to get louder in the absence of that noise; with any luck, they’ll gravitate toward the new alarm. The revenants waver in place, many still grasping over each other in the tight throng closest to the car. 

“Hold tight down there. Let’s see if they take the new bait,” I murmur to my radio. 

Another revenant shakes loose from the fence, but luckily it wanders away from the driveway. Tanya sees it, too, and she stands slightly to line up a shot at it. When she lets fly, the arrow catches in the thing’s back. It doesn’t take notice. 

_ Waste of an arrow, _ I grumble to myself, bringing the scope back to Tanya. She makes a face at her miss and decides to leave the creature alone for now. 

Two more revenants wander in through the gate, disoriented by the new alarm as the sound bounces off cars and houses. Apart from them, the area just beyond the gate is clearing quickly. 

“Two more coming toward you. I don’t have a clean shot,” I tell the women. 

Chiyoh takes a look over the tailgate of her truck, sizing up the two revenants. She raises her machete, ready to strike; Tanya notches another arrow and prepares to step around the car. I keep my scope close, just in case. 

The downside is that I don’t see the third revenant until it’s almost on top of Tanya. 

Chiyoh jumps out past the tailgate swinging; she strikes the approaching revenant with a solid downward blow, splitting its skull. She’s looking for the second one before the first hits the ground. 

Tanya aims at it, her back elbow raised high. She can’t miss from three feet away. 

The third revenant enters the field of my scope from behind her; it must have come from the other side of the house. It’s already in grabbing distance -- I fumble at the radio and the rifle at the same time, unsure which to prioritize. Chiyoh sees it at the same time I do, freezing in the middle of her second swing. 

Fuck the radio. I reposition the rifle, aim -- 

Tanya looses her arrow into the approaching creature’s face -- 

The revenant behind her grabs her ponytail, then her shoulder --

Chiyoh is yelling, lunging -- 

I see a flash of yellow teeth protruding from a jaw with no skin or muscle, opening as the withered arms pull Tanya backward. Chiyoh, on top of them, wedges her machete between the thing and Tanya to lever some distance between predator and prey. Tanya’s head angles back sharply, her blonde hair ensnarled in the thing’s grey, sinewy hands. Her throat is fully exposed and inches away from the revenant's mouth. 

_ I’d better not miss, _ I think dryly. 

I fire. 

Grey and black flash in a moist cloud behind the revenant’s head. It jerks, its skull keeling back sharply, and then slumps to the ground. A flash of yellow follows as Chiyoh disentangles her machete; it’s Tanya’s ponytail —or most of it— sliced clean off near the base of her head. 

I ignore how Tanya immediately crouches behind the truck, her head between her knees. Instead I replace my shell and set my sights back for the gate. 

It’s still relatively clear despite the scuffle, and the crowd in the street is beginning to shift North. Careful of Chiyoh as she dashes between the two trucks, I take out the closest revenant I see and start looking for the next target. 

Chiyoh heaves the right side of the gate closed, drawing the attention of another creature from the street as the metal grinds on asphalt. She turns on it with her teeth bared, swinging hard with the machete. The revenant drops and she jogs across the driveway for the left gate. 

Tanya is still hiding behind the truck, as far as I know. I don’t have the time to check on her as I watch Chiyoh’s back. Evidently, though, she’s still alive: “Fucking  _ fuck _ , Will,” she finally manages to spit into the receiver.  _ “Fuck!” _

“Are you all right?” I ask her, trying to inject a little concern into my voice. 

Chiyoh strong-arms a thick chain through several links of the gate and fumbles over securing the padlock. I slide a new round into the rifle and take aim at a revenant that’s now gripping the links of the closed gate.

Tanya doesn’t answer me, but in the next moment the back of her head bobs across my crosshairs  _ again _ . This is messy. I wait impatiently as she flanks Chiyoh and proceeds to fire at the same revenant I picked out. Two more immediately take its place. 

“Back in the house now,” I bark at them as soon as I see Chiyoh slide the padlock home. “Inside. No noise.  _ Go! _ ”

They both hesitate, watching the gate. I’m also assessing its stability as more revenants latch on to it. 

“Now!” I order. 

They comply, darting straight back to the front door. 

I wipe my forehead on my sleeve, still anxiously watching the gate. The revenants don’t give up and turn away as soon as the women leave their line of sight, but on the plus side no new ones accumulate. 

After a second I press the radio button. “Can everyone check in?” I sound tired to my own ears. 

“We’re all inside together,” Chiyoh supplies. 

Hannibal taps his receiver, too, wherever he is.  _ Thump, thump.  _ I’m still wondering how he’ll get back inside. We can’t exactly ask him -- it’s not critical. I have little doubt he’ll figure something out. 

“There’s still three left in the front yard. Tanya, can you come up here with some arrows? I want as little noise as possible.”

“Yeah. Coming,” she sighs. 

—

Her footsteps are familiar on the stairs, still heavy but slower than usual. Tanya pauses at the door before meandering over. I keep my eyes on the revenants in the yard, paranoid about losing track of one of them.

“Think you’ve got it?” I ask her once she’s had a look. “Am I in your way?” 

“Nah.” 

She kneels next to me and lifts up her bow. She takes her time. The patience pays back in accuracy: three true shots slice through three heads in a row. The corpses fall to rest against the fence. 

“Yard’s clear,” I tell the radio. “We should still do a final sweep, but not until the activity dies down on the street. At least we can get to the paddock now.” 

With that settled, I look at Tanya directly. Her hair is half-gone, her comfort ponytail still lying in plain view on the driveway below us. The flash of yellow hair remaining is asymmetrically long at the front and the left of her head; she’s like a doll that’s suffered toddler’s shears. I decide not to mention it.

She’s uninjured, but I wouldn’t say unwounded: tears leak down both sides her face. She looks angry, as usual, but these aren’t angry tears -- in fact, as I slip past myself and into her, I don’t feel the contention between us on her end anymore. She’s like a crumpled soda can. Battered. Listing. 

Maybe it’s because I’m still inside her head, maybe I’m confusing my feelings for hers, but I elect not to make her ask me again. “I was a cop for eight years,” I tell her, semi-resigned. “Then I did work for the FBI. It was rough, so I left, and —I don’t like to talk about it.”

Tanya doesn’t meet my eye. She nods, tiny little bobs of her head.  We watch the street in silence for a while, the slow parade toward the new alarm taking the pressure off of us. 

“They used me like a thing,” she finally says. “My body stopped being mine, but I was still stuck in it. After the first few times I learned to just check out. Left my body with whoever it was and went someplace nicer for the night.”

I don’t look at her. It would be too much.  “Where did you go?” 

I can hear the small smile in her voice without seeing it. “My Daddy used to take me down our back 40 as a kid. There was a little creek at the foot of the mountain -- three feet wide at the biggest -- and this little waterfall. Felt like a big waterfall. I’d run ahead of him down the path, downhill all the way… it felt like flying.” She shifts, wiping tears on her sleeve. “I’d go there. Flying.”

“Do you still go there?” I ask her, thinking of my own stream. 

“It’s a safe place,” she hedges, not really answering. 

A minute goes by in silence. 

“So one day at camp this new guy shows up,” she continues, trying for upbeat. “New people turned up sometimes. If there were women, they’d k-- they’d kill the guys with them. Bree and her husband were like that. But if it was just a guy that turned up, they’d kind of vet him out first. Decide if they wanted to keep him around. 

“Well I guess they really liked this new guy. They were real excited about him. Big Barry was like, ‘You can have a go with Tanya for sure! Go get it!’" She laughs, a painful sound. "So me an’ him went to the tent --” 

Her words start to tumble out faster, her voice rising. “I was -- ready to go flying, but instead of pawing at me he closed my robe back up and just sat there. I thought  _ something’s fucking wrong and Barry will be pissed  _ \-- but eventually it hit me that nothing was wrong. This man just wasn’t a  _ piece of shit rapist, _ first one in three fucking months. Last one left in the world, probably. And that little glimpse of perspective hurt so, so, fucking bad that I still tried to go and get back to the waterfall anyway.

“I couldn’t. And he just -- held me. And I cried and I slept, and…” 

She swallows, takes a deep breath, and sighs out the tension. 

“After a few hours, he asked me the strangest thing. He asked me if I was ready to  _ free myself. _ And boy, I _was_ ready.” Her voice is even again. Angry, almost. Back to normal. “Of course, he didn’t  _ ask  _ it. He had to write it down.” 

I close my eyes against her feelings, channel them to the appropriate place in my mind palace. The cell, or the theater, whatever it is now. The Tragedy of Tanya, right next to The Tragedy of Sue. 

_ She’s not competition, _ I tell myself --  _ plead _ to myself.  _ She’s not competition. She’s another patient. That’s what all this is. She’s just another patient. _

“He’s a good therapist,” I struggle to tell the woman next to me, the words spilling out almost as fast as the idea forms. “Unconventional. Maybe better suited to this world than the old one. Can you imagine getting the same prescription a year ago? ‘Kill your abusers’?” 

Tanya frowns but says nothing. 

“Anyway,” I continue, “you’re lucky. To be his patient, here, now.”

She looks me over, critical; confused. “His patient?”

“That’s what you are to him,” I tell her. My voice wavers a little. “Someone he cares for. Someone he guides. Someone he  _ sets free. _ ” __

_ And that’s  _ all  _ you are to him,  _ I don’t say. 

“...I’m worried that you’ve got the wrong idea, Tanya. About your relationship with him. And anyway I think you still have some -- healing to do. After what you went through. After what you’ve been through today.”

Her lips part slightly, combining with her wide, swollen eyes and haphazard hair to complete a pitiful sight. She searches my face, then moves on to the exposed walls around us, the far corners of the attic room. If there’s something here to prove me wrong, she doesn’t see it. 

She can keep looking. “Hannibal,” I address the radio, “Check in? Still all right out there?”

_ Thump, thump. _

Not sure why I worried. “Please signal if there’s something you need us to do. We’ll figure out what it is.” 

When there’s no reply I turn back to Tanya. “Let’s go take care of Sue,” I tell her gently, setting the rifle on Chiyoh’s bed and extending a hand to her. 

It’s an offer of a truce — in the growing shadow of my victory.

She nods and helps me up.

\--

The sun is high off the back deck; it’s chilly but bright. The five of us line up at the rail, regarding the three revenants trapped in the paddock. Sue remains by the gate, still pinned in place by the arrows. 

Tanya’s bow rests in her hands: she lifts it two or three times over the course of ten minutes, aiming at the paddock, but keeps lowering it again. 

“We could go down to the gate and tie them up first, just like we’ve been practicing,” Bree murmurs. Nobody replies to support the idea. 

I’m growing frustrated again. Obviously Chiyoh should shoot them down. A glance at Chiyoh’s face tells me she already knows it, too. Do I need to be the one to say it? 

I consider the leadership role that I’ve already begun to wheel myself into, then the resources I have to support that role. Let’s see: what would Jack Crawford do in this situation? 

Jack wouldn’t hold anyone’s hand in a moment of mourning, that’s for sure. _But he also wasn’t caught up in a bizarre competition over a serial killers’ affections with a highly-traumatized --_

I cut that line of thinking short. Who am I kidding? That’s almost exactly what happened. 

Forget Jack. What would Hannibal do? ...  _ Cook dinner, of course _ . Leave everyone to their own devices and see what happens; sit back with popcorn. Anarchist leadership. That’s no more useful than Jack’s approach. 

I sigh and resolve to sit this out patiently. Tanya can take all the time she needs to do it her way.

What  _ is  _ Hannibal doing, anyway? The distant car alarm cut off about thirty minutes ago. Whenever I ask Hannibal to check in by radio, he does so right away. I like to think he’s figured out how to mobilize the crowd away from this street, lead them further and further away. Or -- he did mention that several houses on the street had solar energy; he could be laying low in one of them.

“Look, there’s one down by the back gate,” Meg points across the yard.

We all strain to watch the far end of the paddock. I squint hard.

Bree is the first to comment: “Just one’s not too big of a probl-- Oh!” She gasps. “That’s not a revenant, look at that. That’s Hannibal.”

With my vision, I’m one of the last to see him in the shade of the rear yard. It’s more of a man-shaped blur, but I take the women for their word that it’s him and not a revenant. Hannibal crouches outside the gate for a minute or two, working on something. When he stands, it’s to push the gate inward with some effort.  _ Resetting the paddock trap,  _ Tanya called it. It snaps shut quickly behind him. 

The two revenants not stuck to the fence turn around slowly as he strolls across the grassy stretch of pen. They twitch to mobility, groaning their intentions as they begin to stalk toward him. 

I can’t make out his face, but I don’t need to in order to read him. He’s excited, even jubilant, at the prospect of a fight. At the right time -- three paces away from the closest creature -- he draws his katana free of its scabbard in a broad, well-practiced movement.

The sword connects like a baseball bat against the first creature’s forehead. The blow effectively scalps the revenant in a single slice; hair and black blood spit out across the pen. Without slowing, Hannibal lunges to catch the second one on the tip of his sword. The katana slides straight in through its eye socket, a lethal blow. 

The moves are all graceful, appropriately artistic.  _ Jubilant _ .

Despite the hair and skin and sliver of bone now hanging off the back of its head, the first revenant is still moving. Hannibal turns back to it as though surprised -- or insulted. As it raises its arms to grab him, he extracts a knife from his pocket and plunges it one-handed down into the cranial wound. The revenant falls at his feet. 

Hannibal doesn’t pause long to survey his kills. These aren’t actual  _ kills  _ to him, nothing to be particularly proud of -- even if they were fun to do. He approaches Sue’s struggling corpse at the same relaxed pace.

“Wait,” Tanya calls down, voice straining, as he reaches the maze of sunken arrows by the gate. 

Revenant Sue snarls and tries to turn toward Hannibal in the yard. The turning motion frees several of the arrows from the diamond weave of the fence; she jerks against the remaining ones and snaps her teeth at him.

Hannibal looks up, curious, to see Tanya lifting her bow again and notching an arrow. Understanding, he stops in place and lowers the katana. After a moment’s consideration, he thinks twice and takes a broad step away from the cluster of missed shots on the ground. 

Tanya’s shoulders hike and fall with a steadying sigh. She lifts her right arm to draw, fingers nestled against her cheek. 

The revenant twists harder against the chain link with a long and raspy growl. With a second jerk, she pulls the remaining arrows free and begins to stumble in Hannibal’s direction. 

“Tanya,” I warn her.

It pops out without me thinking. Hannibal’s not in any danger — he just took two of them on at once. It doesn’t make me like the situation any better. The revenant drags her feet across the ground, stumbling as she catches on the protruding fletching of arrows. 

Still holding the sword off to the side patiently, Hannibal takes a step back and glances up at the deck. Tanya sighs again, then stands very still. Her lopsided hair flutters in front of her eyes; she blows inelegantly at it to move it. 

Hannibal takes another step back, still watching the deck.  _ Eventually, _ I think,  _ we’ll need to stop humoring the girl and just kill this thing. ...Again. _

Tanya lets fly. The arrow clicks against the bow as it sails; it plunges directly through Sue’s skull from the back right side, a perfect shot. The walking corpse falls to her knees and tips over face-first, coming to final rest only a few inches from Hannibal’s boots. 

He puts his sword away. 

_ A paltry offering, _ I think.  _ Minor League. It’s not a real kill. _

Of course, Tanya is probably preoccupied thinking about Sue, not how nice of a gift her friend’s corpse is for her crush. I’m the one who thinks about that fucked up kind of thing. 

_...which is why she isn’t a threat. _

It strikes me as funny -- wherever my head is, the murder, this stupid thing with Tanya. I have to mentally clamp down on my facial features to hide my amusement.  _ It’s ok, _ I tell myself -- I can afford to chuckle over my  _ extremely  _ petty victory with Tanya while the others sit in mourning. I am a master of compartmentalization now: Sue’s death is stored away neatly. It glows, tragically, in the theater in my mind, but it and all the emotions that belong with it are quiet there. 

I am their master, not the other way around. 

“I’m pregnant,” Tanya announces to us, a hollow monotone. 

Silence reigns.

Our eyes all find her, quietly soaking in the new information. No one speaks. Tanya’s eyes remain fixed on Sue’s body.

“Just took a test,” she finally adds with a little shrug, dourly matter-of-fact.

Still no one jumps to speak. Congratulations are an iffy prospect, not that I would be first in line to offer mine. Not to her. Condolences might be more appropriate, given the place that the women came from, what they went through there. 

_ What they went through —  _

_ — there.  _

I part my lips slightly, narrowing my eyes at her. She’s still staring dumbly at the corpse in the yard when the question slips out of me. 

“...how long did you all say you’ve been here, again?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anybody like a feral Will?   
> ... stay tuned. xoxo


End file.
